Embedded

BeagleBone's Jason Kridner (@Jadon) returns to tell us about his new book. Jason co-authored a new book: BeagleBone Cookbook: Software and Hardware Problems and Solutions (or at O'Reilly). His older book is Bad to the Bone: Crafting Electronics Systems with Beaglebone and BeagleBone Black. Previous Embedded.fm episode 60: Fun Things You Can Make out of Beagles BeagleBoard.org's Google Summer of Code page (including BeagleSat and underwater drones!) Some information about putting Xenomai on a BeagleBone Black for real time response. Chris mentioned Brillo, an alternative Google supported OS that isn't on the BBB. Project Ara: an open source smartphone Ardupilot: Autonomous drone piloting.  Dronecode: Drones in Linux OpenROV: Underwater vehicles Mars lander Beagle 2 (the Apollo 11 Lunar Module was the Eagle despite some comical confusion). [UPDATE: Listener Mark Stevens pointed out that the Apollo 10 Lunar Module was named Snoopy who was a beagle.] TI's E2E Forums BeagleBone Green

James Grenning (@jwgrenning) returns to discuss TDD, Agile, and web courses.  James was on Embedded.fm episode 30: Eventually Lighting Strikes. James' new company is Wingman Software. His excellent book is TDD for Embedded C.  James suggested Training From the Back of the Room! as resource to people looking to put together a class. He uses and recommends CyberDojo as a coding instruction tool. Before Agile was Agile-for-business, it was Extreme Programming. James recommends Extreme Programming Explained. James will be the keynote speaker at AgileDC in October.

Jen (@RebelbotJen) joined Chris and Elecia to discuss security, privacy, and ethics in wearable computing.  Elecia's Linker post is especially relevant this week: Device Security Checklist.. There is already a standard for privacy and security: HIPAA (Title II). While not easy to read, it is a reasonable starting place. Another good (but not quite on-point) resource is the EFF Secure Messaging Scorecard, especially if you consider your device as messaging your user (it's a metaphor, ok?). Also, read all the way to the methodology, not just the pretty checkboxes. Mike Ryan has great explanations for how to easily crack BLE security. Video to watch. His website has more resources, papers, videos, tools. The Embedded Systems Conference (Silicon Valley) will be held at the Santa Clara convention center July 20-22.  Wearables and IoT Growing Up: Talking To Your Products About Security And Ethics(Jen, Wed 11am) Teardown: Wearing Security on Your Sleeve (mostly Jen with Elecia telling jokes if/when things go wrong, Tue 1:30pm, on the show floor so free to attend with an Expo pass. We'll be taking apart a Nymi band.) Faker to Maker in 45 Minutes or Less (Elecia, Wed 1:30pm) Casino article: Breaking the House Chris and Elecia were guests on The Amp Hour.  Jen is interested in putting together a workshop/conference on the intersection of art, dance, and technology. Contact her on Twitter or email info at rebelbots dot com. 

We talked to Craig Cook about learning embedded systems. He recently attended an embedded edX course through University of Texas.   The microcontroller and boards used in the course Craig's next course will be Interactive Python through Coursera As we discussed Craig's alarm clock we mentioned many parts including: FM Module ESP8266 WiFi Module Electric Imp (Sparkfun or Digikey, don't forget the April breakout board) Chris has also been looking at Particle.io's Photon board for WiFi + cloud development. This will be mentioned on other shows (as well as on The Amp Hour).

Chris and Elecia talk about satellites, survey results, and entertainment. ESP8266 has an Arduino IDE (thanks, Karl!) Elecia will be speaking at Solid June 25th and ESC July 22nd. To celebrate the first 100 episodes, Elecia made a spreadsheet of all the guests and topics. Chris read and recommended Neal Stephenson's Seveneves. He was ambivalent about the latest incarnation of battlebots.

Manny Wright of Cortus spoke with us about developing processor IP and how it goes from RTL to silicon.  Cortus development platform with a Xilinx Spartan and Arduino Due compatibility. Planet Labs satellite contest winners are announced and Elecia has a cold.

Atmel’s Andreas Eieland (@AndreasMCUguy) spoke with us about low power chips and benchmarks, including tips for measuring and achieving the lowest power possible. EEMBC has a low power benchmark: ULPBench. EETimes wrote up a great introduction to the benchmark. Atmel’s SAM-L posted some excellent numbers for ULPBench. Chris wanted to look at processors between Cortex-M4 and phone chips. Andreas suggested the SAM7, SAM E, and Cortex-A5. Programmable logic blocks (Look Up Tables) Coding tips and tricks for AVR micros (most things apply for all embedded development) App Note: Ultra Low Power Techniques App Note: Performance Levels and Power Domains Andreas was also on Episode 15: Robot on the Front, speaking about how the AVR processor line came to life, why there is an AVR in Arduino, and the spirit of making things. The Planet contest ends Friday June 12 (at midnight your time). Check out their jobs and send in your contest entry. Also, check out Elecia’s BLE Intro.

Mark VanderVoord (@mvandervoord) spoke with us about leading open source projects and test driven development. His site is ThrowTheSwitch.org, a good place to get started with test driven development. Get more info (and a coupon) for his course. Mark's book is Embedded Testing with Unity and CMock.  Lengthy list of unit testing frameworks for C Why's Guide to Learning Ruby (free! with entertaining comics!) D Lang

Charles Lohr spoke with us about $5 WiFi (ESP8266), hacking as a hobby, arcade games, and music visualization. Updated 06/02/2015: A listener pointed out that the Arduino IDE can program the ESP8266, probably an easier setup than Charles' original article. Also, the Linker post for this show is about getting started with BLE. Follow Charles on YouTube (or say hello on Google+ and Hackaday.io). To get you started, here are Elecia's favorites: High Res Wifi Signal Mapping (ESP8266)  ColorChord 2 Wifi Cup (ESP8266) For more about the ESP8266: Charles' Hackaday write up (and github repository) Espressif site Electrodragon, Adafruit, and Sparkfun have modules ST 9 axis inertial measurement unit LSM9DSO

Micah Elizabeth Scott (@scanlime) spoke with us about Coastermelt, art installations, FadeCandy, teaching electronics to artists, and mental health.  Her Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) installation is mesmerizing, some videos.  In her Coastermelt project, Micah uses the IDA disassembler. FadeCandy is for sale at Adafruit. Zen Photon is online, demonstrating ray tracing. Micah's website shows her current projects.  Micah's previous Embedded.fm episode focused on FadeCandy: 41: Pink Universes Die Really Quickly. Robot Odyssey looks awesome. Captain Awkward is a site where you can get advice on how to say things and deal with difficult situations/people. Micah's shop has a TypeA 3D printer (note: Tuco's favorite bolts) as well as an OtherMill.