490: Wait Until Physics Has Happened

Nikolaus Correll spoke with us about robots, teaching robotics, and writing books about robots. 

Nikolaus is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Colorado, see his lab website (or his Wikipedia page).

We discussed Nikolaus’ Introduction to Robotics with Webots Specialization Coursera course (or YouTube Playlist). These go along with his Introduction to Autonomous Robots (which can be compiled from source from github).

Masters of Computer Science online via University of Colorado and Georgia Tech.

While the Arcbotics’ Sparki is no longer in production, Nikolaus also mentioned the Amazon Racer.

Transcript

Nordic Semiconductor has been the driving force for Bluetooth Low Energy MCUs and wireless SoCs since the early 2010s, and they offer solutions for low-power Wi-Fi and global Cellular IoT as well. If you plan on developing robust and battery-operated applications, check out their hardware, software, tools, and services.
 
On academy.nordicsemi.com, you’ll find Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular IoT courses, and the Nordic DevZone community covers technical questions:  devzone.nordicsemi.com.
 
Oh, and don’t forget to enter Nordic Semiconductor’s giveaway contest! Just fill out the entrance form, and you're in the running. Good luck!

488: Two Slices of Complimentary Bread

Adrienne Braganza Tacke spoke with us about her book Looks Good To Me: Constructive Code Reviews. It is about how to make code reviews more useful, effective, and congenial. 

Adrienne’s book is available now as an ebook at manning.com or a paper copy later in the year (Amazon link). Check out the example Team Working Agreement from Appendix A.

Adrienne’s personal website is adrienne.io.

Transcript

485: Conversation Is a Kind of Music

Alan Blackwell spoke with us about the lurking dangers of large language models, the magical nature of artificial intelligence, and the future of interacting with computers. 

Alan is the author of Moral Codes: Designing Alternatives to AI  which you can read in its pre-book form here: https://moralcodes.pubpub.org/

Alan’s day job is as a Professor of Interdisciplinary Design in the Cambridge University department of Computer Science and Technology. See his research interests on his Cambridge University page.

(Also, given as homework in the newsletter, we didn’t directly discuss Jo Walton’s 'A Brief Backward History of Automated Eloquence', a playful history of automated text generation, written from a perspective in the year 2070.)

Transcript

480: Surprises Early In The Game

Jerry Twomey spoke with us about his new O’Reilly book Applied Embedded Electronics which covers embedded topics such as EMI, signal processing, control systems and non-ideal components.

Jerry is also the principal engineer at Effective Electrons. His articles are linked from there and you can contact him via the site.

Here is a 30-day trial for the O’Reilly Learning System. You can take a look at Jerry’s Applied Embedded Electronics and Elecia’s Making Embedded Systems as well as hundreds of other books about software, hardware, engineering, and origami. 

Transcript

473: Math Is Not the Answer

Philip Koopman joined us to talk about how modulo 255 vs 256 makes a huge difference in checksum error detection, how to get the most out of your checksum or CRC, and why understanding how they work is worth the effort.

Philip has recently published Understanding Checksums and Cyclic Redundancy Checks. He’s better known for Better Embedded System Software as well as his two books about safety and autonomous vehicles:

Phil has many free video lectures with great visuals to go along with his books. He also has three(!) blogs:

Currently, Phil is a professor at Carnegie Mellon University (his page there). You can follow him on LinkedIn. 

Elecia read (and give 2.5 stars to) Symmetry: A Journey into the Patterns of Nature by Marcus du Sautoy: “Interesting but uneven, I kept reading to find out what horrible things math profs do to their children in the name of fun. Worth it when I finally got to a small section with Claude Shannon (and Richard Hamming). It didn’t help with this podcast but it was neat.”

Transcript

Nordic Semiconductor empowers wireless innovation, by providing hardware, software, tools and services that allow developers to create the IoT products of tomorrow. Learn more about Nordic Semiconductor at nordicsemi.com, check out the DevAcademy at academy.nordicsemi.com and interact with the Nordic Devzone community at devzone.nordicsemi.com.

472: Field of Boxes

Making Embedded Systems, 2nd Edition came out today! Chris and Elecia talk about the changes, the writing, but not the eldritch horror. Then we talk about pianos and origami. 

The electronic version is available now on Amazon, ebooks.com, Google Play and where you get your ebooks. The paper copy will be out in about two weeks, you can preorder now. It is also available on the O’Reilly Learning System, here is a  30-day Trial.

See the Embedded.fm Origami and Flex PCBs newsletter, sign up for future newsletters here. 

Memfault is hosting its first launch week of the year! On Tuesday, March 12th, Memfault CEO François Baldassari will showcase how to evaluate the health and performance of your embedded devices clearly within Memfault's observability platform. Join the webinar to discover how simple it is to monitor three necessary device measures: stability, battery, and connectivity. Register today!

470: Upping the Chaos Level

Helen Leigh joined us to talk about putting together conferences (including Teardown 2024), indie hardware producers (including via Crowd Supply), and building communities.

Teardown will be June 21-23 in Portland, OR, USA. More information about attending or presenting. Early bird tickets are available for a limited time! Teardown is put on by Crowd Supply, a company that helps hardware companies launch products.

Hardware Happy Hour Portland is a regular meetup that Helen organizes. Helen will be hosting a meetup in Oakland, CA, USA on Feb 15: Oakland Sound Hackers. She is also hosting a San Francisco, CA meetup on March 6: Open Hardware Happy Hour. 

We mentioned Alvaro Prieto's USB-or-Me cable tester, for more information this hackster.io article has the deets.

Helen’s personal site is helenleigh.me. She has been on the show twice before in 355: Favorite Ways to Make Noises and 261: Blowing Their Fragile Little Minds.

Transcript

Memfault is making software the most reliable part of the IoT with its device reliability platform that enables teams to be more proactive with remote debugging, monitoring and OTA update capabilities. Try Memfault's new sandbox demo at demo.memfault.com. Embedded.fm listeners receive 25% off their first-year contract with Memfault by booking a demo here: https://go.memfault.com/demo-request-embedded

465: Dinosaurs, Pirates, Spaceships

Yanina Bellini Saibene joined us to discuss teaching, localization, barriers to learning coding, and global communities. 

Yani works on Teach Tech Together (https://teachtogether.tech/) with Greg Wilson. It is a fantastic resource if you are learning to teach. It is available in English and Spanish. She also works on The Carpentries which teaches coding and data science skills to researchers worldwide. 

Yani has a site (yabellini.netlify.app) that includes the courses she has online (for free). She is also the community manager of rOpenSci and is part of R-Ladies.

You can find Yani on fosstodon.org/@yabellini.

Transcript

Memfault is making software the most reliable part of the IoT with its device reliability platform that enables teams to be more proactive with remote debugging, monitoring and OTA update capabilities. Try Memfault's new sandbox demo at demo.memfault.com. Embedded.fm listeners receive 25% off their first-year contract with Memfault by booking a demo here: https://go.memfault.com/demo-request-embedded

462: Spontaneously High Performing

Marian Petre spoke to us about her research on how to make software developers better at developing software.

Marian is an Emeritus Professor of the School of Computing & Communications at the Open University in the United Kingdom. She also has a Wikipedia page. 

The short version of How Expert Programmers Think About Errors is on the NeverWorkInTheory.org page along with other talks about academic studies on software development topics.  

The longer version is a keynote from Strange Loop 2022: "Expert Software Developers' Approach to Error".

This concept as well as many others are summarized in Software Design Decoded: 66 Ways Experts Think (Mit Press) by Marian Petre and Andre van der Hoek (MIT Press, 2016). The book’s website provides an annotated bibliography. Marian has also co-written Software Designers in Action: A Human-Centric Look at Design Work.

She is current conducting inquiries into:

  • Code dreams: This research studies whether software developers dream about coding – and, if so, the nature of those dreams.  Following on from work on software developers’ mental imagery and cognitive processes during programming, this project investigates developers’ experience of coding in their dreams (whatever form that takes), and whether the content of such dreams provides insight into the developers’ design and problem solving.

  • Invisible work that adds value to software development: The notion of ‘invisible work’ – activity that adds value in software development but is often overlooked or undervalued by management and promotion processes – arose repeatedly in discussions at Strange Loop 2022.  Developers asked for evidence they could use to fuel conversations -- and potentially promote change -- in their organisations. This research aims to capture the main categories of ‘invisible work’ identified by developers (e.g., reducing technical debt; improving efficiency; addressing security; development of tools and resources; design discussions; …), and to gather concrete examples of the value that work adds to software.  

Transcript

460: I Don’t Care What Your Math Says

Author, engineer, manager, and professor, Dr. Greg Wilson joined Elecia to talk about teaching, science in computer science, ethics, and policy.

The request for curriculum that started the conversation was the Cost of Change, part of NeverWorkInTheory which summarizes scientific literature about software development. 

Greg is the founder of Software Carpentry, a site that creates curriculum for teaching software concepts (including data and library science). Software Carpentry has great lessons for those who want to learn about software, data, and library science. It is a great site if you are teaching, trying to get someone else to teach, learning, or looking for some guidance on how to do the above. Check out their reading list.

Greg’s site is The Third Bit. Here you can find his books including full copies of several of his books including The Architecture of Open Source Applications, Teaching Tech Together, and most recently Software Design by Example. 

Transcript

459: Ideas Have to Come From Somewhere

Professor AnnMarie Thomas spoke with us about playful learning through joy,  whimsy, surprise, and meeting new people. 

We also spoke with AnnMarie about how adults can foster an environment that encourages innovation. See more about that (and the interviews of various engineers and makers) in her book Making Makers: Kids, Tools, and the Future of Innovation

You can find AnnMarie on Mastodon: mastodon.social/@AnnMariePT

If you want to know more about squishy circuits, check out AnnMarie’s TED talk: Hands-on science with squishy circuits (or the related book Squishy Circuits (21st Century Skills Innovation Library: Makers as Innovators)).

She is the head of The Playful Learning Lab at the University of St. Thomas where she is a professor of engineering and entrepreneurship. 

We also talked about the LEGO Foundation. More about that on LearningThroughPlay.com

AnnMarie suggested the cephalopod-centric novel The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler. Elecia countered with The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery (non-fiction).

And now, a question for you to ponder, what is your most meaningful learning experience?

Transcript

450: Swimming Through Nutritious Slurry

Kari Love joined us to talk about soft robotics, robots in religion, and squishiness.

Kari co-authored Soft Robotics: A DIY Introduction to Squishy, Stretchy, and Flexible Robots. Her website is karimakes.com. She was previously on Embedded 189: The Squishiness Factor

One of the pneumatic drives that we mentioned was a Hackaday Prize Winner: FlowIO. Another was the Soft Robotics Toolkit. However, Kari recommended Amitabh Shrivastava’s Programmable Air (Crowd Supply page for Programmable Air).

Some search terms for getting started with soft robotics: “DIY Jamming gripper”,  “Positive pressure gripper”, and “bendy straw robot joints”. (That last one leads you to the delightful video Make a Robotic Hand with Straws.)

Polysense conductive dye for making sensors out of found objects. (On Hackaday.)

Simulation of Soft Bodies in Real World Applications (for squish and stretch) include SOFA, Abaqus, and DiffPD.

Transcript

An incomplete list of power systems people have used for generating soft robotic motion:

  • Pneumatic - air and vacuum

  • Hydraulic - using liquid

  • Electrical - using currents

  • Thermal - using temperatures

  • Cable control - using motor control

  • Magnetic - using magnets

  • Chemical - using reactions

  • Photonic - using light

  • Biological - using living cells

  • Hybrid systems - multiple sources in tandem

An incomplete list of things people have used to make soft robots:

  • Fabric

  • Silicone or other rubbers

  • Flexible plastic

  • Plastic films

  • Metallic films

  • Paper

  • Carbon fiber

  • Silly Putty

  • Shape-changing alloys

  • Electroactive polymers

  • Liquid metals

  • Gelatin or Gluten

  • Cell tissue


438: There Is Nothing That Is True

We talked with John Taylor about his book, how to handle data, and the open/closed principle of software development.

John’s book is Patterns in the Machine. It was mentioned on Embedded Artistry and is part of their Design for Change course.

John also has a blog (PatternsInTheMachine.net) and a github repo that is a companion to his book, showing the PIM framework.

Transcript

437: Chirping With the Experts

Daniel Situnayake joined us to talk about AI, embedded systems, his new book on the previously mentioned topics, and writing technical books. 

Daniel’s book is AI at the Edge: Solving Real-World Problems with Embedded Machine Learning from O’Reilly Media.

He is also the Head of Machine Learning at Edge Impulse, which makes machine learning on embedded devices simpler. They have a Responsible AI License which aims to keep our robot overlords from being too evil.

We mentioned AI Dungeon as an amusing D&D style adventure with an AI. We also talked about ChatGPT.

Daniel was previously on the show, Episode 327: A Little Bit of Human Knowledge, shortly after his first book came out: TinyML: Machine Learning with TensorFlow Lite on Arduino and Ultra-Low-Power Microcontrollers

Transcript

DALL·E 2022-12-08 15.37.51 - artificially intelligent robotic cricket planning the singularity


432: Robot Bechdel Test

Martha Wells is a science fiction and fantasy author. She spoke with us about her books (including Murderbot Diaries!), writing, and creating fantastical worlds.

Marth (@marthawells1) has won Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards for her work. We mostly talked about the Murderbot Diaries and the Books of the Raksura. Oh, and the Star Wars tie-in about Leia, Razor's Edge. And The Witch King is coming out next year, a brand new world. Heck, just look at her full catalog. Martha also has a blog and a website.

As often happens when book dragons get together, we talked about our hoards. Some books and authors that came up:

Tor.com is a fantastic site with lots of free fiction. Murderbot started there and has a few short stories that are otherwise hard to find.

There is a rare and sold out Subterranean Press edition of the Murderbot Diaries with illustrations from Tommy Arnold. See some of the illustrations.

Transcript


421: Paint the Iceberg Yellow

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 Hobbs.

This discussion was originally for Classpert (where Elecia is teaching her Making Embedded Systems course) and the video is on Classpert’s YouTube if you want to see faces.

There were many terms with letters and numbers, here is a guide:

  • IEC 61508: Functional Safety of Electrical/Electronic/Programmable Electronic Safety-related Systems; relates to industrial systems and forms the foundation for many other standards 

  • ISO 26262: Road vehicles - Functional Safety; extends and specializes IEC 61508 for systems within cards

  • IEC 62304 specifies life cycle requirements for the development of medical software and software within medical devices. It has been adopted as national standards and therefore can be used as a benchmark to comply with regulatory requirements.

  • MISRA C: a set of software development guidelines for the C programming language 

  • DO178-C and DO178-B: Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification are the primary documents by which the certification authorities such as FAA, EASA and Transport Canada approve all commercial software-based aerospace systems

  • ISO/IEC 29119: Software and systems engineering -- Software testing

  • ISO 14971:2019 Medical devices — Application of risk management to medical devices (this is the on that was mentioned as a set of useful guidelines for identifying and mitigating hazards during brainstorming)

  • IEC 62304:2006 Medical device software — Software life cycle processes

Transcript

419: Fission Chips

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 Scientist Laboratory (@EMSL). He and Eric have collaborated before on several projects:

Eric is also known for the Monster 6502, a 6502 processor made up of individual transistors. Eric also writes on tubetime.us and is on Twitter as @TubeTimeUS

Sign up for the Embedded newsletter by the end of July and be entered to win one of these lovely prizes:

Transcript

A lovely reject from the book, this is the base of a neon bulb from GE.


409: A Better World

Dr. Shirley Davis spoke with us about her book: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion For Dummies.

Dr. Davis is a speaker and consultant on diversity, equity, and inclusion topics; her website is drshirleydavis.com. 

Dr. Davis’ books include:

Transcript

408: Room In Your Heart for Your Robot

Machine learning engineer and science fiction author S. B. Divya joined us to talk about artificial intelligence, robotics, and humanity.

Divya’s first full-length book is Machinehood which has been nominated for a Nebula (as was her novella Runtime).

You can find more about Divya on her website (sbdivya.com) or on her Wikipedia page.

Divya also co-hosted EscapePod, a podcast of science fiction stories. 

Transcript

393: Don’t Drive My Baby Off the Table

Professor Carlotta Berry from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology joined us to talk about robotics, PID tuning, engineering education, ethics, her book, and standing up in front of a classroom.

Carlotta’s book is Mobile Robotics for Multidisciplinary Study (Synthesis Lectures on Control and Mechatronics). 

She has a page at Rose-Hulman as well as a personal blog and a consulting site (NoireSTEMinist.com). She is an advocate for BlackInRobotics.org.

On Twitter, Carlotta Berry has a personal account (@DrCarlottaBerry) and a professional account (@NoireSTEMinist). She is also the @BlackInRobotics coordinator. 

An explanation of Zeigler-Nichols PID tuning with pros and cons.