Stay ConnectedI am Elecia White alongside Christopher White. We’re here to chat about the interests, careers, and lives of engineers, artists, educators and makers. Our diverse guest list includes names you may have heard and engineers working quietly in the trenches. Either way, they are knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and inspiring.
We’d love to share our enthusiasm for science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM).
Copyright: © 2013-2023 Logical Elegance, Inc.
Chris and Elecia discuss civic duties, the CAN bus, fulfilling Kickstarter orders, and the answers to a series of questions about embedded systems.
Elecia was recently introduced to TRIZ inventive principles (wikipedia page) and started reading And Suddenly the Inventor Appeared: TRIZ: Theory of Inventive Problem Solving by Genrich Altshuller.
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We spoke to author Robin Sloan about his books and near-future science fiction.
Robin wrote Mr. Penumbra's 24 Hour Bookstore and Sourdough.
Find Robin on twitter as @robin_____sloan. Robin's website is robinsloan.com. Go there for some short stories, sign up for his newsletter and check out his new 'zine (also at wizard.limo). Oh! Don't forget his blog, including a description of his neural net for audio generation and for writing.
Some books Robin suggested:
Home: A Short History of an Idea by Witold Rybczynshi
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
Hild by Nicola Griffith
Sunshine Jones spoke with us about synthesizers, electronics, and philosophy.
Find him on twitter @Sunshine_Jones and instagram at sunshine_jones_
Sunshine's music is most easily found at TheUrgencyOfChange.com. His writing is at Sunshine-Jones.com.
We talked about Sunshine's User's Guide to the Roland SE-02. That includes Ahmed, a track produced using only the SE-02.
Sunshine also wrote about building a polysynth.
The intro music is an excerpt from LELEK, released on Air Texture Vol. V. The exit music is Fall In Love Not In Line, released this year on vinyl only, TUOC01. See TheUrgencyOfChange.com for more.
Sunshine was the host of SundaySoul.com, a live podcast about music and life.
Ingo Muschenetz spoke with us about software, management, podcasts, and interacting with people.
Ingo's LinkedIn page
Ingo works for Axway, they are hiring: Axway Careers
Ingo keeps up with many podcasts, here are some of his favorites:
Podcasts that talk about a complex topic, provide insight
Throughline
Planet Money
Indicator https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510325/the-indicator-from-planet-money
Freakonomics
Podcasts with interviews and discussions about lives and careers
Conan OBrian https://www.earwolf.com/show/conan-obrien
Andy Richter https://www.earwolf.com/show/the-three-questions-with-andy-richter/
Fresh Air
Podcasts that don't fit into a category other than "interesting":
99% invisible
20000 Hz
Podcasts that Ingo didn't mention but meant to:
The Daily: https://www.nytimes.com/column/the-daily
Software Engineering Daily: https://softwareengineeringdaily.com/
The Bugle: https://www.thebuglepodcast.com/
Switched on Pop: https://switchedonpop.com/
Gastropod: https://gastropod.com/
Jeremy Fielding spoke with us about mechanical engineering, robotics, robot operating system, YouTube, and solving problems. You can find all of Jeremy's links on his main site: jeremyfielding.com but here are a few short cuts:
YouTube channel: Jeremy Fielding
Twitter: @jeremy_fielding
Instagram: @jeremy_fielding
Patreon: jeremyfieldingsr
Jeremy's Industrial arm punching video
Jeremey had a neat way to go about solving a problem. He called it Dr. FARM:
D Define the problem
R Research other solutions, partial solutions, terminology
F Function: what do I want it it do?
A Appearance: what should it look like?
R Risk: is anyone going to get hurt in manufacture and function?
M Model: prototype the design
AR3 Open Source Control Software and a version with ROS MoveIt
Liam Cadigan joined us to talk about founding a successful startup from a college capstone project. Liam is a co-founder of InspectAR and worked on the board files the system uses.
Liam can be found on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Check out InspectAR. They are also on Twitter and on Instagram.
The Inventor's Dilemma: The Remarkable Life of H. Joseph Gerber
Alex Glow filled our heads with project ideas.
Alex is the Resident Hardware Nerd at Hackster.io. Her page is glowascii and you might want to see Archimedes the AI robot owl and the Hardware 101 channel. They have many sponsored contests including BadgeLove. You can find her on Twitter at @glowascii.
Lightning round led us to many possibles:
It you were building an IoT stuffed animal, what would you use? Mycroft and Snips are what is inside Archimedes.
If you were building a camera to monitor a 3d printer, what would you use? For her M3D Micro Printer, Alex would use the Raspberry Pi based OctoPi to monitor it.
If you were going to a classroom of 2nd graders, what boards would you take? The BBC Micro:bit (based on Code Bug) or some LittleBits kits (Star Wars Droid Inventor Kit and Korg Synth Kit are on Amazon (those are Embedded affiliate links, btw).
If you were going to make a car-sized fighting robot, what dev system would you use? The Open Source Novena DIY Laptop initially designed Bunnie Huang
There were more software and hardware kits to explore:
Raspberry Pi Chirp.io
For your amusement Floppotron plays Bohemian Rhapsody
Alex gave a shout out to her first hackerspace All Hands Active
Ableton is audio workstation and sequencer software. Alex recommends Women's Audio Mission as a good way to learn audio production and recording if you are in the San Francisco area.
There is an Interplanetary File System and Alex worked on a portable printer console for it.
Elecia is always willing to talk about Ty the typing robot and/or narwhals teaching Bayes Rule. She recommended the book There Are No Electrons: Electronics for Earthlings by Kenn Amdahl.
Mario Marchese (aka Mario the Maker Magician) spoke with us about robots performing magic, humans performing magic, and writing a book about making magic. We also covered art, making, learning, Sesame Street, performance, design, humor, Piff the Magic Dragon [sic], magic secrets, and gracefully handling technological failure.
You can find Mario on:
His website mariothemagician.com
YouTube (MariotheMagicianNYC)
Instagram (mariothemagician)
Twitter (@mariomagician)
Facebook (mariothemagician).
His book is The Maker Magician's Handbook: A Beginner's Guide to Magic + Making.
We talked about Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, 19th century French watchmaker, magician and illusionist, and the amazing Aldo Colombini.
Leah Buechley spoke with us about the intersection of computer science and art. She is an associate professor in the computer science department of the University of New Mexico where she directs the Hand and Machine research group.
Her website is leahbuechley.com, her research group website is handandmachine.cs.unm.edu. You can find her on Twitter at @leahbuechley.
She wrote the book Textile Messages: Dispatches From the World of E-Textiles and Education and developed the LilyPad Arduino for wearable electronics.
We talked about Chibitronics, paper circuits, developed by Jie Qi (who was on Embedded 277: The Sport of Kings talking about patents as well as Chibitronics)
We talked about Nettrice Gaskins' Techno-Vernacular Creativity and Innovation: Culturally Relevant Making Inside and Outside of the Classroom
An example of a tiny stepper motor on eBay
Chris (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) discuss Blender, Make, TCP/IP, and listener questions (mostly about the podcast itself).
Lightweight IP: an open source TCP/IP stack for embedded systems
Look for Lazy Tutorials for Blender in Ian Hubert's YouTube Channel or if you want something a little simpler, try the Blender Beginner Tutorial (donut!).
Ukulele and acoustic guitar kits are at StewMac.com
Book with sponge sneeze information: Brilliant Abyss by Helen Scales
This episode was sponsored by InspectAR. If you design, debug, or just need to use PCBs, InspectAR can give you superpowers. It's an augmented reality app and platform that allows you to visualize every layer, every connection, every aspect of your actual physical board in real time
InspectAR is free for trial and home use. With a subscription you get powerful collaboration and debugging features including annotating the AR view, sharing comments, setting up test and calibration procedures. Check it out!
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