Embedded

Emily Velasco (@MLE_Online) spoke with us about artistic projects, retro-future aesthetics, and scientific communication.  She shows and describes the projects on YouTube: Emily’s Electric Oddities including the Optical Sound Decoder, Port-A-Vid, Hairy Cacti, and the Lissajukebox. Many of Emily’s professional writings can be found on Wevolver, usually redirected to sites where they are published.

Chris and Elecia talk about making albums, making progress, DIY shot reporting, getting credit, and project management. Check out the Embedded transcripts (now with older shows appearing weekly!).  The Embedded Patreon provides the funds for guest mics, transcripts (new and old), and new shirt designs. Thank you very much to the supporters. Thank you to our listeners for raising over $5000 for DigitalNest! Books and articles mentioned: Tessellations for Everyone Risk Up Front: Managing Projects in a Complex World Software Project Survival Guide  Object-oriented design patterns in the kernel Open source gunshot sensor   Thank you to 2020 sponsors including Qt and Triplebyte as well as InterWorking Labs for their early patreon-business-level support.

We spoke with Kathleen Tuite (@kaflurbaleen) about augmented reality, computer vision, games with a purpose, and meetups. Kathleen’s personal site (filled with many interesting projects we didn’t talk about) is SuperFireTruck.com. Her graduate work was in using photogrammetry to build models. Kathleen works for GrokStyle, a company that lets you find furniture you like based on what you see. GrokStyle is used in the Augmented Reality try-it-at-home IKEA Place app. Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Language translating/learning app and online game is Duolingo TensorFlow in Javascript HCOMP 2018: Human Computer Conference with Keynote by Zooniverse’s Lucy Fortson (no video for that yet but we hope)

Leonardo Laguna Ruiz of Vult spoke with us about modelling electronics, modular synthesizers, and modulating sound. We talked in detail about applied digital signal processing. Leonardo’s website is www.vult-dsp.com. Check out the Freak Filter, the user manual alone is a course in signal processing. You can buy finished or DIY versions on vult-dsp.com/store.  The physical hardware is a Eurorack module (wiki) but the Vult modules are also available for the VCV Rack, a Eurorack simulator that you can use to build your own modular synthesizer.  Leonardo has a YouTube channel where he goes in depth on signal processing: youtube.com/c/LeonardoLagunaRuiz. He’s also written about modeling vintage analog sound on the Wolfram blog. For more information about the Vult programming language (or an example for how to build your own, check out the github repository: http://modlfo.github.io/vult/overview/ This episode was sponsored by Qt, a cross platform application framework for desktop, mobile and embedded devices. That means you get a full set of libraries for nearly everything you can think of, plus a world-class GUI that will give you a native look wherever your code runs. Try Qt for free at www.qt.io/download (qt.io/embeddedfm ! And check out Qt for MCUs!)

Helen Leigh (@helenleigh) joined us to talk about music, electronics, books, and starting a new job at CrowdSupply (@crowd_supply). Helen was previously on Embedded #261: Blowing Their Fragile Little Minds where we talked about subversive geography, her book The Crafty Kid's Guide to DIY Electronics, and the mini.mu musical gloves. Helen has a book coming out in 2021 about DIY Music Tech including a soft version of the Michel Waisvisz' CrackleBox (Kraakdos). Check out some of the projects in HackSpace magazine issue 36 and 37 (the book will be serialised in HackSpace). Or look on YouTube for some examples of Helen’s purring tentacle and her circuit sculpture harp. Helen mentioned Bunnie Huang’s Precursor, an open mobile phone, on CrowdSupply (campaign ending shortly). The Giant German Congress mentioned is the CCC Congress Festival Helen’s preferred thread (the one you can actually get) is Madiera’s conductive threads. Hit the contact link for purchasing. (Helen notes you can use it for both sides in a sewing machine!)  

Becky Worledge of the Qt Company (@qtproject) spoke with us about application frameworks, organizing large code bases, and automotive regulations. The best place to get started with Qt is the getting started page: doc.qt.io/qt-5/gettingstarted.html  Or skip that and head straight for the code: github.com/qt Maybe backtrack to see what is available: qt.io/product/features Hmm, was there talk of Qt and Python? PySide was it? qt.io/qt-for-python But wait, Qt for MCU? What platforms are supported? QtForMCUs/qtul-supported-platforms.html Finally, don’t get eaten by a Grue, sense when they are coming: doc.qt.io/qt-5/qtsensors-grue-example.html Qt6 is coming out Dec 2020. So maybe replace all the qt-5 in the links with qt-6 to see if it is ready yet! Oh, and Qt is hiring: qt.io/careers The quote at the end is not from Abraham Lincoln. (Quote Investigator). Still a good thought.

Seth Hillbrand (@SethHillbrand), lead developer for KiCAD (@kicad_pcb), spoke with us about open source development, EDA tools, pronunciation, and inclusion. Check out KiCAD! Seth’s company provides support for KiCAD (kipro-pcb.com, @kiproeda).  

John McMaster (@johndmcmaster) told us about the process of opening up chips to see how the processors are structured and what the firmware says.  See John’s website for information on getting started (as well as digging much deeper). John has given some interesting Hardwear.io talks including Capturing Mask ROMs and Taming Hydrofluoric Acid to Extract Firmware. His talks and many others are available on the Hardwear.io archive. Or sign up for the Hardwear.io Online Hardware Security Training, Berlin Jan 2021. As mentioned in the show: John wrote a blog post about his top lab accidents and explosions. Paper: Reverse engineering Flash EEPROM memories using Scanning Electron Microscopy by Franck Courbon, Sergei Skorobogatov, and Christopher Woods Rompar and bitract are the two programs mentioned as helpful for getting from an image to binary code.

Chris and Elecia discuss transcripts, lightsabers, seashells, python, numpy, matlab and how to get into embedded systems development. Embedded show transcripts are available at embedded.fm/transcripts  Elecia’s origami github repository includes a python script for generating origami shell folding patterns. The paper described was Analysis of Shell Coiling: General Problems by David M. Raup from the Journal of Paleontology , Sep., 1966, Vol. 40, No. 5. Chris used this model to print his lightsaber: Star Wars Lightsaber (Normal version) from YouMagine The episode was sponsored by Triplebyte. If you are looking to prove your skills, develop your knowledge, or find a job you love, check out Triplebyte.

Ben Hencke (@ledmage, @im889) updated us on blinking lights and running a small hardware business. You can find the current PixelBlaze in the Electomage store on Tindie (tindie.com/stores/electromage/) or signup for a shiny new version on CrowdSupply. Ben’s personal site (bhencke.com) has lots of projects including a page devoted to the awesome Pixelblaze projects (including the BioTronEsis alien light sea creatures which someone who hosts this show hopes will be in her Christmas stocking). When Ben is making Pixelblaze, the brand is ElectroMage (electromage.com/) so you can see more about Pixelblaze there including the forum. We didn’t talk about TapGlo, the arcade ping pong table that Ben is also working on. Favorite solder paste: LOCTITE GC 10 paste (henkel-adhesives) About his favorite acronym, Ben says, “XMLHttpRequest is my favorite because it perfectly illustrates how we're (developers) bad at naming things and like to come up with arbitrary rules for things. The story about how XML is all caps and Html is camel case is just too perfect, and it's popular use rarely has anything to do with XML” Finally, There are 40 different flavors of Kit Kat. There are 12 flavors of candy corn, they all taste the same.