Embedded

The founders of Bluestamp Engineering spoke with us about running a hands-on summer engineering program for high school students (while keeping their day jobs). Bluestamp website, Twitter (@BlueStampEng), YouTube channel full of student projects and Facebook page. Dave Young (@daveyoungEE) is also the principal engineer at Young Circuit Design. Robin Mansukhani is also CEO of Alzeca. Robin also gave a TED talk about learning by doing.

Raman Pi creator Mark Johnson (@flatCat_) spoke with us about spectrometers, 3D printing, and competing in the Hackaday Prize. Raman Pi project on Hackaday.io Hackaday prize semi-finalist video Mike Szczys' Fl@c@ bio on Hackaday.com Open Source Fusor Research Consortium Wikipedia: spectrometer, Raman spectroscopy, fusors, and optical coherence tomography Weird Stuff is a Bay area electronics surplus store Raman Pi also has its own website

Jen, Chris, and Elecia talk about the movies that influenced them to go into engineering. Real Genius (imdb, Amazon) Star Wars (imdb, Amazon) Choose Your Own Adventure books (Amazon, wiki) Wargames (imdb, Amazon) Ghostbusters (imdb, Amazon) Star Trek: The Next Generation (imdb, Amazon) 321 Contact, show and magazine (imdb (tv)) The Muppets Show (imdb, Amazon) Sneakers (imdb, Amazon) Phineas and Ferb (imdb, Amazon) Sisterhood of Spies (Amazon) Crytonomicon (Amazon)

Chris and Elecia babble up a show about gifts, conferences, and makers. Embedded Systems Conference is put on by UBM. The conference is in Boston May 6-7, 2015, Santa Clara July 20-22, and Minneapolis November 4-5. The Santa Clara proposal deadline is January 9th. O'Reilly's Solid Conference is June 22-25 in San Francisco. Proposals are due January 12th. Fitbit Surge (Amazon) Kerbal Space Program and some controllers and telemetry boards from other people CrossyRoad is on iOS and Android (This is bad, do not start. Also unihorse is the best!) Elecia's Wordy project on Hackaday Magnetoception in humans is controversial (wiki) but the magnetometer/motor anklet is neat.

Bill Winterberg (@BillWinterberg) chatted with Elecia about leaving embedded engineering to become a financial planner then to being a technology adviser to other financial planners. Bill's company is FPPad. You can subscribe to his newsletter and watch Bits and Bytes, his video blog (or read it). When Elecia mentioned Domini Social Investments, Bill mentioned Vanguard Total Stock Market. Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance In Your Twenties and Thirties Financial adviser networks: XY Planning Network (by interest) Garrett Planning Network (hourly fees only) NAPFA (fee only advisers) CFP® (by zip code) Robo-advisor (automated investment management) Bill says: "It shouldn't be this hard for smart engineers."

Vicky Tuite (@vixter55) came on the show to chat with Chris and Elecia about EVAOS, a company that upgrades Ford trucks into plug-in hybrids. Feminist Hacker Barbie She’s Geeky Bay piggies (BayPIGgies)

Chris Svec (@christophersvec) has an idea about adding empathy to software development. It is a good idea. His blog is Said Svec. He works for iRobot and they are hiring. (Chris' email is given toward the end of the show but if you hit the contact link here, we'll pass along info to him.) Obligatory cat video Embedded has an episode devoted to impostor syndrome. O'Reilly's Head First book series is pretty awesome. Elecia is still talking about Thinking, Fast and Slow as a great way to understand brains. Chris Svec also recommends Make It Stick. The Richard Hamming quote came from his address to the Naval Postgraduate School. The whole lecture is available on YouTube.

Sophi Kravitz (@SophiKravitz, G+) joined us to talk about working on neat things: Wobble World, Oculus Rift, Unity, goldfish training, and BlueStamp Engineering. Sophi's company is Mix Engineering Leap Motion vs. Microsoft Kinect Goldfish driving (vid) Quit Your Day Job on Element14, previously on Super Green Dot Advertising in SkyMall Thermoelectric Firestarter

Ron Sparks (@txNgineer, AG5RS) spoke with us about the convergence of makers and ham radio enthusiasts. The alternative internet: AMPRNet (wiki) aka 44 net Pecan Pico AmSAT SatNOGS (their site, their hackaday entry, and the video Elecia liked) Weak Signal Propagation Reporter Network ("whisper"). Also on wiki.

Radhika Thekkath, CEO of Agivox, joined Elecia to talk about her start up, entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley, and getting NSF SBIR grants. Contact Radhika SBIR home page

Elizabeth Brenner (@eabrenner) returned to the show to talk about the are-you-ok widget that she and Elecia have been working on. (The initial problem-statement show is episode 17.) There is now a SparkFun tutorial so you can build one of the are-you-ok widgets yourself. As announced in the show, there is a contest to get a SparkFun gift card, it ends 6/13/14 so get your answer in by then (maximum of two entries per person, please). Elecia already took the name Sal Right out of the running (reference). In the photo below, are Maxwell, Hugh, Haley, and Grimes (from left to right) so those are all taken as well. Noted on the show were two things El saw at the Solid Conference: 3D printed flexible materials from Kinematics and circuit stickers from Chibtronics. Also, we look forward to trying out the Fitbit channel for if-this-then-that (IFTTT) to see if that can monitor our loved ones too.

Elecia attended O'Reilly's Solid Conference, recording a few of the people she met there. Note: this episode is recorded in a noisy location. Erin Mulcahy at littleBits (@littleBits), magnetic electronics modules Jack Mudd at Onewheel (@RideOnewheel), powered sort-of skateboard with only one wheel and auto-balancing Laurie Yoler from Qualcomm, she spoke on Intelligent Connectivity. It’s What’s Next Taylor Stein from AutoDesk, a Fusion 360 evangelist (free for hobbyists!) Ahmed Daoud from Playtabase, makers of Reemo Terrence McKenna of Panoptes ("No drone is safe until it is a Panoptes UAV.") Also, thank you to O'Reilly for giving away copies of my book.

Jack Ganssle shared his wisdom on being a good embedded software engineer (hint: it takes discipline). Jack's website is filled with great essays and new videos. He's also written the Art of Designing Embedded Systems and The Embedded Systems Dictionary (with Michael Barr). We covered a lot of ground, here are some of the highlights: Spark language Capers Jones on high quality software and associated statistics Joel on Software test for good teams LDRA unit test tool James Grenning's Test Driven Development for Embedded C

Elecia spoke with Micheal Worry, CEO of Nuvation, about engaging with and working at a design firm. Disco Fish, the autonomous Burning Man party vehicle Udacity course in autonomous vehicles ROS is Willow Garage's robot operating system Contact Nuvation at their website or on twitter (@Nuvation). Contact Disco Fish and its build buddies on Facebook.

Jen Costillo (@r0b0ts0nf1r3) joins Elecia and Christopher to discuss their experiences interviewing (both as interviewer and interviewee). Elecia did an hour long webinar on how to conduct technical interviews. In this show, she mentions a good post-interview ratings system. Google discovered that their brainteasers are not a very effective way to interview. Despite the news that swearing is good for you, we tried to bleep everything. Also, it is minesweeper, not minefield. What were we thinking? It was obviously all Christopher’s fault. Though we should have stood up to him. Elecia's book has more interview questions but from the perspective of how do you ask a question and what do you look for in a response.