Embedded

Chris and Elecia bounce from topic to topic, discussing life and work and occasionally answering listener emails. Python can format code into equations in Latex with Latexify ( as noted in this tweet )  Interesting sensor: Sensing deep-tissue physiology via wearable ultrasonic phased arrays    Turing Complete - a listener-recommended logic gate puzzle game for Steam. In the past, we've also talked...

We were joined in the studio by the Evil Mad Scientists Lenore Edman and Windell Oskay. Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories ( @EMSL ) produces the disintegrated 555 Timer kit and 741 Op-Amp  kit . These were made in conjunction with Eric Schlaepfer, who also created the Monster 6502 .  EMSL also makes the Eggbot kit and AxiDraw not-kit (and mini-kit ). For a history of the pen plotter, check out Sher...

We spoke with Duncan Haldane about creating hardware schematics by writing software code, three dimensional circuits, and bio-inspired jumping robots.   Duncan is the CEO of JitX ( jitx.com ). They recently received Series A funding and are currently hiring engineers. Please mention that you heard about JitX here on Embedded. While earning a PhD at UC Berkeley, Duncan ( @DuncanHaldane ) also worke...

Jonathan Beri spoke with us about the different IoT development tools and how to categorize them.  Jonathan ( @beriberikix ) is the CEO of Golioth ( @golioth_iot ). He wrote a blog post called An Introduction to The Five Clouds of IoT , breaking the clouds into individual clouds: device, connectivity, data, application, and development. Jonathan was previously on Embedded 222: Virtual Bunnie when...

Elizabeth Wharton spoke to us about laws, computers, cybersecurity, and funding education in rural communities. She is a strong proponent of privacy by design and de-identification by default. Liz ( @LawyerLiz ) is the VP of Operations at Scythe.io ( @scythe_io ), a company that works in cybersecurity. She won the Cybersecurity or Privacy Woman Law Professional of the Year for 2022 at DefCon. Liz...

Elecia and Chris are back from vacation and catching up! Today's topics include: last week's burnout episode and what we learned, what is a PSoC and why would you want one, how to get up to speed as a junior engineer, and a few more side quests. The burnout episode with Keith Hildesheim was last week, we encourage you to check it out, we learned some things about ourselves and maybe you will too....

Keith Hildesheim joined us in an excellent conversation about avoiding burnout at work (and dealing with the aftereffects).  Keith mentioned some useful books and articles: Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle Mindset: The New Psychology of Success SCARF Model Burnout Is About Your Workplace, Not Your People 5 Ways to Boost Your Resilience at Work How to Make Stress Your Friend Growth...

Mike Harrison challenged us to a PIC fight on twitter. Surprisingly, no blood was shed and we mostly talked about LEDs and art installations. Mike's YouTube Channel and his website electricstuff.co.uk . He's on twitter as @mikelectricstuf.   Here's a link to what prompted the show: PIC fight on Twitter . His professional hire-him-to-work-on-your-neat-stuff site is whitewing.co.uk For driving LEDs,...

Professor Barbara Liskov spoke with us about the Liskov substitution principle, data abstraction, software crisis, and winning a Turing Award. See Professor Liskov's page at MIT, including her incredible CV.

Gustavo Pezzi spoke with us about using fun and simple systems to explain low-level concepts and how they work in higher-level engineering tasks. For example, teaching microprocessor concepts using Atari 2600 assembly and physics by creating a simple game engine. Gustavo's site is Pikuma.com . He has a free taster course on bit-shifting . We also talked about Atari 2600 Programming with 6502 Assem...

Phillip Johnston joined us to talk about how engineering approaches can change over time.  This conversation started with Phillip's Embedded Artistry blog post How Our Approach to Abstract Interfaces Has Changed Over the Years . His new course is Designing Embedded Software for Change .  Embedded Artistry has a Design Pattern Catalogue (though Elecia was looking at Software design patterns on Wiki...

Chris and Elecia chat about origami, learning, whether to future proof tools or buy the cheaper option, simulators, and classes. Elecia is gearing up to teach another Making Embedded Systems course. Sign up if you want to be in the Yellow Seahorses cohort ! Sign up early and often. Sign up other people. Ask other people to sign themselves up and even more other people. Well, you get the idea. Chec...

Chris Hobbs talks with Elecia about safety critical systems. Safety-critical systems keep humans alive. Writing software for these embedded systems carries a heavy responsibility. Engineers need to understand how to make code fail safely and how to reduce risks through good design and careful development.  The book discussed was Embedded Software Development for Safety-Critical Systems by Chris Ho...

Dan White, CEO of Filament Games, spoke to us about educational games, how to make play part of learning, and simulating robots. We also discussed what makes a good (or bad) learning experience, the limits of games as educational tools, and the elements of fun. Roblox is a game platform and game creation system. Filament Games is developing a robot simulator called Roboco . Filament has many games...

Mohit Bhoite makes functional electronic sculptures from components and brass wire. We spoke with him on the hows and whys of making art. Mohit's sculptures , including the Tie Fighter . More on his instagram: mohitbhoite Jiri Prause has a wonderful tutorial on how to make simpler freeform electronics on Instructables . Peter Vogel is another artist making phenomenal freeform electronics. Leonardo...

Eric Schlaepfer and Windell Oskay are the authors of Open Circuits: The Inner Beauty of Electronic Components. We discussed the inner beauty of a number of electronic components as well as cameras, photography, writing, preparing samples, and terrible title puns. You can pre-order the physical book and get a digital early release copy at NoStarch.com/Open-Circuits Windell is co-founder of Evil Mad...

Chris and Elecia question embedded systems then answer listener questions about embedded systems. They mostly agree except about one thing which, after some discussion, they agree upon. Mostly. Video of Cissy Strut cover where Chris plays all of the instruments Video where Elecia shows off some programmatic origami and simulation (not discussed but it seemed reasonable retaliation for talking abou...

Alexandra Covor spoke with us about engineering, making, drawing, school, and what it means to be an artist.  Alex's projects are on GitHub and Hackster.io . Her electronics comics can be found as PikaComics on Instagram . The 2022 Open Hardware Summit named Alex as part of the Ada Lovelace Fellowship . Her favorite talk from the summit was Anuradha Reddy talking about Knotty (Naughty) Hardware ....

John Catsoulis is the founder of Udamonic and creator of the Forth-based Scamp development board. He spoke with us about Forth, electrical engineering, and writing a technical book. Find out more about Udamonic's Scamp at udamonic.com . There are some hardware projects under the Create menu. The Forth programming language is famous for its small size, portability, and post-fix (RPN) nature.  John...

Lead Solution Architect at Cymotive, Benny Meisels spoke with us about implementing embedded software security in cars. The discussion touches ECUs, IoT vehicles, threat and risk analysis, and how reverse engineering plays a role in security testing. Benny works at Cymotive ( https://www.cymotive.com/ ). You can find him on LinkedIn benny-meisels or on Twitter @benny_meisels . Resources for automo...

Laura Abbott of Oxide Computing spoke with us about a silicon bug in the ROM of the NXP LPC55, affecting the TrustZone.  More information about the two issues are in the Oxide blog: Another vulnerability in the LPC55S69 ROM Exploiting Undocumented Hardware Blocks in the LPC55S69   More about LPC55S6x and their LPC55Sxx Secure Boot Ghidra is a software reverse engineering framework… and it is one o...

Chris and Elecia chat about practice, software quality, and empathy for seemingly unmotivated team members.  Elecia is teaching another cohort of Making Embedded Systems in the fall, starting late August. There will be reminders between now and then but if you want to sign up, here is the page . The funny and odd music instruction video with the copy-and-paste method of composition. Sign up for th...

Tom Anderson returned to the show to describe how transistors and passives work. We discuss everything from vacuum tubes to diodes to transistors (PNP and NPN) to resistors and capacitors. We search for synonyms among the confusing terminology of cathodes, plates, emitters, anodes, grids, bases, and collectors.  This was a tech heavy episode so little bit of brushing up on terms may be useful befo...

Ethan Slattery joined us to talk about animals, animal trackers, and how they work. Ethan works for Wildlife Computers . They use the Argos Network for data transfer. He was previously at MBARI and worked with Engineers for Exploration as an undergraduate. Ethan is also known as CrustyAuklet on Twitter and Github . He also has an Instagram page .  Things mentioned in the show you might want to kno...

Amanda "w0z" Wozniak spoke with us about her career through biomedical engineering and startups.  Amanda contributed a chapter to Building Open Source Hardware: DIY Manufacturing . (A book we spoke with Alicia Gibb about in # 289 .) Amanda's chapter was titled Design Process: How to Get from Nothing to Something. For more information about the companies we discussed, check out Amanda's LinkedIn pa...