Philana Benton (@TechnoPHILiANA) spoke with us about mentoring: how to be a good mentor, what to expect, and what not to do.
If you’d like to try mentoring, sign up for Philana’s DivTekSpace (divtekspace.org). You can do a resume review, a mock interview, give career advice, and/or refer students to your company.
Philana’s home page is philanaaurelia.com
We also mentioned imentor.org
Joel Sherrill (JoelSherrill) spoke with us about choosing embedded operating systems and why open source RTEMS (RTEMS_OAR) is a good choice.
Embedded #307: Big While Loop: Chris and Elecia talk about when and where they’d use RTOSs
Embedded #93: Delicious Gumbo: Joel gave an introduction to the RTEMS RTOS
Joel works at OAR Corp (oarcorp.com) on RTEMS (rtems.org). RTEMS runs on many development boards including the BeagleBone, Raspberry Pi, and two FPGA boards: ARM ZYNQ-7000 and the Arty Board.
Joel recommends the operating systems book by Alan Burns and Andy Wellens. It comes in many flavors and editions including Real Time Systems and Programming Languages: Ada 95, Real-Time Java and Real-Time C/POSIX (3rd Edition).
NASA Core Flight System (https://cfs.gsfc.nasa.gov/)
Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System (EPICS) (https://epics-controls.org/)
Jay Carlson (@jaydcarlson), author of The Amazing $1 Microcontroller, joined us to talk about comparing microcontrollers and determining our biases. This was an in-depth comparison of different micro features.
Jay is an electrical engineer specializing in electronics design and embedded programming (contact). His blog is new and interesting.
We talked to SEGGER’s Dirk Akeman about JLink on #218: Neutron Star of Dev Boards.
Matt Godbolt (@mattgodbolt) joined us to talk about assembly code, becoming a verb, 6502s, exploring compilers, and application binary interfaces.
Compiler Explorer can be found at godbolt.org. The code is on github (compiler-explorer/compiler-explorer).
Matt also has jsbeeb, a BBC Micro (6502) simulator. You can try it out at bbc.godbolt.org. Its code and more information is on github (mattgodbolt/bbc-micro-emulation). Matt recently gave a video presentation about jsbeeb for ABUG.
Some other videos that may be of interest:
CppCon 2016: Jason Turner “Rich Code for Tiny Computers: A Simple Commodore 64 Game in C++17”
Just enough Assembly for Compiler Explorer - Anders Schau Knatten
CppCon 2017: CB Bailey “Enough x86 Assembly to Be Dangerous”
CppCon 2017: Carl Cook “When a Microsecond Is an Eternity: High Performance Trading Systems in C++”
The best compiler book seems to be The Dragon Book.
Hyrum’s Law on writing interfaces.
Bailey Steinfadt (@baileysteinfadt) spoke with us about the makerspaces, communities, following many paths, and misbehaving robots.
Bailey works at Dojo Five and Stone Path Engineering.
Area 515 is a non-profit maker space in the Des Moines, Iowa area. They supported their local emergency services with over 6000 face shields. If you are looking for something to do with your 3d printer, look at One Shot Bias Tape Maker and the how to use it video.
Bailey recommended the Makers On Tap podcast and grill mats for soldering. Elecia recommended the You Can Do It!: The Merit Badge Handbook for Grown-Up Girls as a book she’s only picked up once in a bookstore years ago but has thought about as an excuse to pick up new skills.
Doug Harriman of Simplexity (@SimplexityPD) spoke with us about motors, controllers, and designing mechatronic systems.
Simplexity (or if you want to contact them)
Doug recommends Control Systems Engineering by Norman S. Nise. Elecia recommends Notes on Diffy Qs by Jiří Lebl from American Institute of Mathematics list of free and approved math textbooks. They both like the 3 Brown 1 Blue YouTube channel.
If you liked the part about how to choose a motor, you might want to watch Doug’s webinar on DC Motors & Motion Control Systems (you’ll have to give your info to see it), see his post about What is a Motion Control System and Five Tips for Mechatronic System Integration.
Dr. Katy Huff (@katyhuff) spoke with us about nuclear engineering, effective software development, and the apropos command.
Katy wrote an O’Reilly book describing Python software development to scientists: Effective Computation in Physics: Field Guide to Research with Python. She has been involved with Software Carpentry.
Katy is a professor at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Department of Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering. She uses Bell and Glasstone’s Nuclear Reactor Theory in her Nuclear Reactor Theory class.
Janelle Shane creates the AI Weirdness blog. (She was also a guest in #275: Don’t Do What the Computer Tells You.)
Chris Svec (@christophersvec) chatted with us about going from engineer to manager and working from home.
Chris had many book recommendations (these are affiliate links):
Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green (fiction)
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink
The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change by Camille Fournier
Resilient Management by Lara Hogan
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering by Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager by Michael Lopp
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Chris is hiring for his team. Check out the iRobot Jobs page or look at the specific jobs he’s hiring for (in Boston, MA): Associate Software Engineer and Principal Software Engineer.
Chris gave a talk to Purdue students about working from home, there is a video and a summary blog post.
An interesting tweet about the difference between working from home and what people are doing now. The Canadian Federal government gave the following advice:
Finally, Svec’s family wants a cat. They probably won’t get a Sphinx despite it matching all the criteria. Maybe an Abyssinian. Or maybe a dog.
Matt Godbolt (@mattgodbolt) spoke with us about settling arguments with Compiler Explorer.
Compiler Explorer comes in different flavors:
You can see the beta version by putting a beta on the end: https://gcc.godbolt.org/beta/
This a fully open source project. You can read the code and/or run your own version:
Matt works at DRW working on low latency software. Note that DRW is hiring for software engineers. You can read about the evolution of Compiler Explorer on their blog.
Matt’s personal blog is xania.org. You might like parts about 6502 Timings. He also has several conference talks on YouTube including x86 Internals for Fun & Profit and Emulating a 6502 in Javascript. Matt was previously at Argonaut Games.
Jason Turner of C++ Weekly and his C++17 Commodore 64
Could a Neuroscientist Understand a Microprocessor? paper (with a nod to Don’t Panic GeoCast’s Fun Paper Friday)
Kate Stewart (@_kate_stewart) of the Linux Foundation spoke with us about the Zephyr operating system (@ZephyrIoT).
Some Zephyr docs:
Two projects using Zephyr:
Open Artificial Pancreas System (openaps.org)
Zephyr on a Hearing Aid talk at Embedded Linux Conference 2019
Christopher (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) discuss listener questions about USB, thesis projects, prototype iterations, motivation, and processor cores.
Chris has been using audiomovers.com to mix audio remotely in real time.
Daniel Situnayake (@dansitu) spoke with us about machine learning on microcontrollers.
Dan is the author of TinyML: Machine Learning with TensorFlow Lite on Arduino and Ultra-Low-Power Microcontrollers. You can read the first several chapters at tinymlbook.com.
TinyML is a part of TensorFlow Lite. See the microcontroller getting started guide.
Dan works for Edge Impulse (@EdgeImpulse) which is making tools for easier machine learning integration at the edge. Their tools are free and they also have a getting started guide.
Dan recently posted on the Edge Impulse blog about training a TinyML model to capture lion roars.
For TinyML meetups and a forum, check out tinyml.org
Lacuna Space: low cost sensors transmitting to space
The Rainforest Connection is using small sensors to monitor for chainsaw sounds
Erin Talvitie of Harvey Mudd College spoke with us about machine learning, hallucinating data, and making good decisions based on imperfect predictions.
Paper we discussed: Self-Correcting Models for Model-Based Reinforcement Learning
Erin’s grant: Using Imperfect Predictions to Make Good Decisions
For a reinforcement learning book, Erin suggests Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction by Richard S. Sutton and Andrew G. Barto or the lecture series by David Silver.
For a machine learning book, Elecia likes Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras, and TensorFlow: Concepts, Tools, and Techniques to Build Intelligent Systems by Aurélien Géron
John Saunders (@NYCCNC) spoke with us about building a Johnny Five robot on his NYC CNC YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/saunixcomp).
You can find all of the Johnny Five build videos on a playlist or check out the NYC CNC page. As mentioned, Input Inc did a lot of the preliminary work.
John recommends books:
John is also the founder of Saunders Machine Works (they have a contact page).
Adam Wolf (@adamwwolf) of Wayne and Layne (www.wayneandlayne.com) spoke with us about making kits, museum exhibit engineering, working on KiCad, and extraterrestrial art philosophy.
Adam has a personal blog on www.feelslikeburning.com/blog/ as well as a website adamwolf.org. Adam co-wrote Make: Lego and Arduino Projects
If you want to know how to contribute to KiCad libraries, check out their instruction page: kicad-pcb.org/libraries/contribute/
We also mentioned:
Evil Mad Scientist’s Guide to Improving Open Source Hardware Visual Diffs
KiCad Automation Tools: tools to autogenerate KiCad artifacts when committing to git
Kivy: open source Python library for making displays
Cedux: application framework
OKGo Upside Down and Inside Out video and Art in Space project
Professor Ayanna Howard of Georgia Tech joins us to talk about robotics including how androids interact with humans. Some of her favorite robot include the Darwin, the Nao, and, for home-hacking, the Darwin Mini.
Ayanna has a profile on EngineerGirl.org, a site that lets young women ask questions of women in the engineering profession.
Elecia has been working on a typing robot named Ty, documented on the Embedded.fm blog. It uses a MeArm, on sale in July 2017 at Hackaday.com, with coupon noted in show. (don't use PayPal to check out or you can't apply the coupon).
Other robots for trying out robots: Lego Mindstorms (lots of books, project ideas, and incredible online tutorials!), Cozmobot, Dash and Dot. Some robotics competition leagues include Vex, Botball, and FIRST.
Carmen Parisi spoke with us about changing jobs from a semiconductor specialist at TI to an electrical engineering generalist at Wasatch Photonics.
Carmen was previously on Embedded 216: Bavarian Folk Metal and formerly was the host of The Engineering Commons podcast
Carmen works at Wasatch Photonics making Ramen Spectrometers.
Ramiro Montes De Oca spoke with us about modular electronics, chiplets, and his company aThing.io
Project Tinkertoy (movie) is a 1953 US Navy project on automated manufacturing of modular electronics.
Ramiro mentioned his accelerator: CoFoundersLab Accelerator
Jason Derleth of the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts Program spoke with us about what it takes to win a NIAC award.
Key dates: Note: Solicitations open in June 2020!
We first heard about NIAC talking to Ariel Waldman. Her niacfellows.org site has some advice and encouragement for applying. Ariel was on Episode 255 of the show.
Elecia’s one-page overview of Curved-Crease Origami and Flex Circuitry for In-situ Planetary Science Sensor Arrays.
Chris Gammell (@Chris_Gammell) of The Amp Hour and Contextual Electronics joined Christopher and Elecia to talk about firmware, learning, and books.
Chris is the host of The Amp Hour, a podcast about electronics and electrical engineering. Chris is also the founder of Contextual Electronics, where you can go to learn how to create electronics. Chris has a long running blog called Analog Life, found on his webpage chrisgammell.com,
Chris is learning firmware as part of his consulting business. He likes Elecia’s Making Embedded Systems book.
KiCon is happening at CERN in September 2020. More information at 2020.kicad-kicon.com.
We talked about Jay Carlson who was on Embedded talking about his Amazing $1 Microcontroller project (#226) and about teaching embedded systems (#303)
We talked about book club books:
And a fun book series called Bobiverse (the Audible version is especially good).
(The outro music is Chris W.’s attempt to troll Chris G. with his “lightning” round answer)