Embedded

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 

The linker post for this episode is Be Excellent to Each Other. Dennis Jackson spoke with us about drones (and Airware), simple code, and learning.  Hobbyist drones and UAVs on Amazon: tiny and cheap,  medium (Christopher's gift), andplease-I'm-drooling-right-now. Only the last one may be an Airware platform (Dennis could neither confirm nor deny). Airware's breakdown of proposed FAA rules Simple code: Cyclomatic complexity Chris Svec's episode on empathy driven design (he'll also be at ESC Boston!) Test Driven Development for Embedded C by James Grenning Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability Dennis has also worked on DEKA's iBOT and at Avinger's OCT system. Dennis had a list of suggested articles and blogs on safety critical software development: 30 Pitfalls for Real Time Systems (part 1 and part 2)  Rules for defensive C programming Joel Spolsky's blog (see top 10) Why are you still using C The Power of Ten -- 10 Rules for Writing  Safety Critical Code  Dennis' other suggested reading (ongoing blogs): Coding Horror Jason Sachs's Embedded Systems  The Old New Thing Rands in Repose (management and leadership)

The Linker post for this episode is RTOSs and Brownies. Joel Sherrill (@JoelSherrill) spoke with us about real time operating systems, free and open source software, interns, and space. RTEMS home page and wiki Google Summer of Code (the FAQ is the best part!) and ESA Summer of code (awesome tagline: In space no one can hear you code). The LEON is the ESA Sparc core with open source VHDL and extensive use by ESA. Some projects RTEMS is used on include the Magnetosphere Multiscale Mission, theExPRESS Logistics Carrier, Mars Curiosity, and the Dawn spacecraft that is visiting the Ceres asteroid.

The Linker post for this episode: Make Anything James @Laen Neal from OSHPark spoke with us about starting a business, helping open source hardware, and throwing wild parties.  OSHPark got its start from DorkbotPDX. If you are in Portland, Oregon, check out their meetup (started out on Mondays, now first Tuesday of the month, look at the CymaSpace meetup calendar for the Maker Meetup). Open Source Hardware Association (OSHA) PCB Design School blog Bay Area Maker Faire 2015 is May 16-17, Bring a Hack dinner is usually Sunday.  This time we really did talk about the Maker Pro book.

The Linker post for this episode: How to Win the Hackaday Prize (and Other Design Challenges) Sophi Kravitz, electrical engineer and Hackaday Mythical Creature, came on to leak the new Hackaday Prize details!  On twitter, she's @SophiKravitz and often has the reins of @HackadayPrize. Sophi mentioned Matt Berggren's PCB workshop (oh! and a Solid talk too!). All three of us have been trying to make time for Contextual Electronics (now with fewer time constraints!). Hackaday Omnibus HardwareCon (startup conference in San Leandro, CA) Giant Flip-Dot Display at CES Soft Robotics Kit (and contest) The balloon project is going to FITC. You can hear the soothing sounds here. Sophi rejoins us after being on Episode 77: Goldfish, Fetch My Slippers. Also, we forgot to discuss it but Sophi was an author in the Maker Pro book, full of neat essays.