Embedded

Doug Ellison (@doug_ellison), Engineering Camera Team Lead at NASA’s JPL and Martian photographer, spoke with us about low power systems, cameras, clouds, and dust devils on Mars. The best paper for learning more is from NASA’s JPL site: The Mars Science Laboratory Engineering Cameras Mars rovers wiki

Alvaro Prieto (@alvaroprieto) spoke with us about cheese, making, work, the reverse engineering podcast, weather, and motivation. Alvaro is a host of the Unnamed Reverse Engineering podcast. Some of his favorite episodes include #41 with Samy Kamkar, #14 with Joe Grand, and #23 with Major Malfunction. (Jen Costillo co-hosts the show and has been on Embedded several times.) Alvaro works at Sofar Ocean, making oceanic sensing platforms. He has a personal website linking to his other exploits. We talked about some Embedded episodes as well: #282 with Laughlin Barker about OpenROV #174 with Evan Shapiro about baby monitors and professional poker  Also, we’ve all really enjoyed the Disney’s Mandolorian.

Chris and Elecia talk with each other about contracting, architecture, origami research, Digilent’s new oscilloscope, TensorFlow, map files, conference talks, art and the upcoming 12AX7 album. Digilent sent us a pre-production Analog Discovery Pro ADP3450. Elecia’s Origami Github. Embedded Patreon Embedded Online Conference talk Buried Treasure and Map Files (Note: the coupon code from Jacob’s show is still valid and Elecia will put up a copy of her talk on YouTube.) 12XA7, we’ll let you know when the Kickstarter goes live.

Finally! An episode with version control! And D&D! Chris Svec (@christophersvec) joins us to discuss why version control is critical to professional software development and what the most important concepts are. T-Shirts are on sale for a limited time: US distributor and EU distributor. You can read more from Chris on the Embedded Blog. He writes the ESE101 column (new posts soon!). If you are new to version control or learning git, Atlassian has a great set of posts and tutorials from high level “what is version control?” to helping you figure out good usage models (Svec mentioned gitflow). Atlassian has an interactive tutorial that lets you try out the repository commands (or try the Github interactive tutorials). Of course, there is a good O’Reilly book about git. If you are using SVN (aka Subversion), the Red Bean book from O’Reilly is a good resource. (Elecia's shirt said You Obviously Like Owls from topatoco.com.)

Al Sweigart (@AlSweigart) spoke with us about getting better at Python programming.  Al’s book site is InventWithPython.com. You can find his books there as well as No Starch Press and Amazon.  Automate the Boring Stuff with Python Beyond the Basic Stuff with Python Cracking Codes with Python Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python Al’s personal site (alsweigart.com) has talks, videos, and a lot of code to look at. Or check out his github repo including the small text based games: https://github.com/asweigart/pythonstdiogames Al’s YouTube Channel, including his Calm Programming series. We also talked about: scratch.mit.edu - a fun way to learn to program where you are almost never wrong Fluent Python: Clear, Concise, and Effective Programming by Luciano Ramalho. PyCon and their talk videos  Online origami simulator (origamisimulator.org)

Dr. Ayanna Howard (@robotsmarts, wiki) spoke with us about sex, race, and robots.  Ayanna’s Audible book is Sex, Race, and Robots: How to Be Human in the Age of AI. You can see more of her research from her Google Scholar page. Find some best practices and tools for reducing bias AI: Partnership on AI  AI Fairness 360 (IBM) Model Cards (Google) Ayanna has recently moved from being Professor and Department Chair at Georgia Tech to be Dean of Engineering at The Ohio State University. Her current favorite robot is Pepper. Ayanna spoke more about her robotics and trust research on Embedded 207: I Love My Robot Monkey Head (transcript). 

Laurel Cummings (@justblamelaurel) teaches people how to build what is required with the material on hand. We talked with her about how to engineer survival solutions on-the-fly, often while performing disaster relief. Also: what could be made with chewing gum and paper clips. Laurel works at Building Momentum (buildmo.com). They are currently hiring. Laurel spoke at SuperCon 2019 about Austere Engineering.

Cy Keener spoke with us about sensors, Arduinos, ice, and the crossover between art and science. You can see some of his field work and gallery installations at his site: cykeener.com and on his vimeo channel. Cy is an art professor at the University of Maryland (bio, youtube) Cy’s advisor at Stanford was Paul DeMarinis (pauldemarinis.org, Stanford page). Arduiniana: a blog of useful Arduino libraries We also talked about some custom sensors by Lovro Valcic of Bruncin (bruncin.com).

Jacob Beningo spoke with us about embedded systems, conference talks, writing articles and books, and best practices in development. Jacob is a consultant and instructor, see his website for more details (beningo.com). Jacob is one of the organizers of the Embedded Online Conference, May 18,19, and 20. Session times is generally noted in Eastern Time (Americas). A coupon code for a discount on registration is in the show. Jacob will be giving a talk called Best Practices for RTOS Application Design. He likes the full visibility of tracing, using the Segger J-Trace with SystemView or Precipio. Jacob has written three books: MicroPython Projects: A do-it-yourself guide for embedded developers to build a range of applications using Python Reusable Firmware Development: A Practical Approach to APIs, HALs and Drivers API Standard for MCUs He’s also written many articles for Embedded.com as well as his own blog. He recommends the IEEE Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK). The SWEBOK is a free download from IEEE, which covers the best practices that engineers should be following when they develop software along with processes and strategies. Jacob also recommends Renesas’ Synergy Software Quality Handbook that describes the processes that they used to develop and validate their software.

Alana Sherman of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI, @MBARI_News) spoke with us about engineering for deep sea environments and jelly creatures. Alana’s MBARI page notes that she worked on DeepPIV and the Benthic Rover. She is also a part of the BioInspiration Lab. Larvaceans: image search, short video, or (my favorite!) the long video. It is probably too late to purchase tshirts but… in case it isn’t, here is the link.