Embedded

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. 

Star Simpson (@starsandrobots) and Jen Costillo (@RebelbotJen) catch up with Elecia and Chris, discussing how hobby projects have changed over the last two years since the show started.  Jen's website: RebelBot Star's website and weekly drone newsletter The Buzzer. Star works at Orion (formerly OnBeep). Novena board and Star's project Balboa ODROID Open Cores Crowd supply and What it took to make the Octopart reference card

Andrei Chichak spoke with us about MISRA-C and ethics.  Linker post: It's dangerous to go alone! Take MISRA-C Embedded.fm listener survey (please!) Andrei's has personal website (we failed to talk about his kite aerial photography, it is really neat though) and his company is CBF Systems. Plum Hall C Compiler Validation PC Lint JPL Coding Standards for C (and the mentioned video discussing Mars Code) ISO 26262 Automobile software standard Cortex-R for high reliability systems (ARM's description) National Society of Professional Engineers code of ethics and Canadian EngineeringGuidelines on the Code of Ethics Offline, Andrei recommended two books and another podcast about MISRA: C Traps and Pitfalls Safer C MISRA with Johan Bezem (podcast)

Chris and Elecia talk about memetics, learning, and processors.  Elecia was coy about the Pasadena party May 9th and 10th, but Hackaday announced it so you can invite yourself. She will also be speaking at the Solid conference in June in SF (email for a coupon!). She'll also be at ESC-Silicon Valley in July.  Star Wars Teaser #2 and SpaceX almost-landing BLE fun: TI's CC2640 and Nordic nRF51822 (Elecia likes the BLE Nano with the free, online mbed compiler for getting started with the nRF5122). Everything seems to be a Cortex-M0 these days (including the aforementioned CC2640 and nRF51822). The new Atmel SAM-L series is Cortex-M0 and even more low power than usual. On the other hand, the MSP432 is low power and is a more powerful Cortex-M4 (and inexpensive dev kits!), Elecia has a book: Making Embedded Systems. It makes a great gift.

Professor Paul Fishwick joined us to talk about CS and STEM education, excellent analogies, and the crossover of art and technology.  The Linker post related to this episode managed to be reasonably topical for a change. Paul's work: UT Dallas homepage Creative Automata blog and Modeling For Everyone blog TEDx talk Aesthetic Computing, one of his books on art and CS. Online chapter.  Creative Automata course Videos   Radiolab Color Episode Forrester System Dynamics Max is a visual programming language for music and multimedia. CS Unplugged is a collection of free learning activities that teach Computer Science through engaging games and puzzles that use cards, string, crayons and lots of running around.  There are many bubblesort dance videos (mindboggling) but this is the one Elecia knew about previously. The Computer History Museum is awesome. If you are in the area, you should definitely go.  Conference and contact notes: There is a party/hack event in Pasadena May 9th and 10th, email if you want more info (and an invite). Elecia will be speaking at SOLID in SF in June, giving an intro to inertial.  She's got a coupon to share if you ask. ESC Minneapolis' call for proposals is open but closing soon. Elecia will be at ESC Silicon Valley in July, speaking on being a Maker (or not). 

Carrie Sundra (@AlpenglowYarn) spoke with us about doing a Kickstarter on her own… and nearly failing. The SkeinMinder is an automation tool for small yarn businesses (and enthusiastic amateurs). When the successful Kickstarter nearly fell short, Carrie candidly wrote about it (includes a great description of the economies of scale). Carrie’s yarn company is Alpenglow Yarn. You can use the contact page there to ask for electrical engineering help as well. Carrie is active on Instagram and her blog is a blend of crafts and engineering. Ravelry is the social media site for knitters and crocheters (requires free account to see anything) The insanely popular Potato Salad Kickstarter. 

This week we discuss lasers, internet of things, and static electricity. Our extremely opinionated guest has a lot to say, including some scatological humor. The associated Linker post went up early for this one, please check it out. Scary robot litter box