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 (@stoneymonster) and Elecia (@logicalelegance) discuss API design and team dynamics.
Elecia's book: Making Embedded Systems
StewMac (Ukulele kits)
Transcript: embedded.fm/transcripts/347
Sophy Wong (@sophywong) creates projects she can wear and writes about them so others can make them as well. We talked about fashion, design, inspiration, and motivation.
Sophy's website is sophywong.com. We spoke about her book, Wearable Tech Projects. Check out her projects on Adafruit, Hackspace Magazine and Make Magazine. She also did a video interview with Tested.
Sophy's space suit was used in Saul's King of Misery music video.
Sophy has found inspiration in Debby Millman's podcast Design Matters, Diana Eng's Fashion Geek: Clothes Accessories Tech, and the work of Sagmeister.
Transcript: embedded.fm/transcripts/346
Gretchen Walker gave advice on creating a BLE iOS application.
Gretchen wrote The Ultimate Guide to Apple's Core Bluetooth on the PunchThrough (@PunchThrough) blog. There are many other good posts on the blog about BLE from a device perspective and app development (iOS and Android). PunchThrough also makes LightBlue, a great BLE debugging app you can find wherever you find your mobile apps.
PunchThrough is hiring embedded software engineers in the Minneapolis, MN area.
Chris and Gretchen both recommend Ray Wenderlich's site for learning about Swift. Chris also liked the Big Nerd Ranch books: iOS Programming and Swift Programming.
Elecia liked the NovelBits.io writeup about getting maximum throughput on BLE.
Ben Hencke (@im889) spoke with us about OHWS, Tindie, and blinking lights.
Ben sells his Pixelblaze WiFi LED controller on his ElectroMage store on Tindie. It is based on the ESP8266 and uses the DotStar (APA102) lights.
To hear John Leeman's trip report on the Open Hardware Summit (OHWS), listen to Don't Panic Geocast, Episode 140 – "Juicero of Tractors"
Ben's websites are bhencke.com and electromage.com. Go there if you want to see some of Ben's projects, including Synthia. You can also find Ben on Hackaday, Github, and YouTube.
We talked with Charles Lohr about ESP8266 WiFi controlled lights and ColorChord on Embedded.fm episode 102: The Deadly Fluffy Bunny (With WiFi).
More about the 4-bit Radio Shack computer (and an Arduino-based emulator for it!)
Kitty Yeung (@KittyArtPhysics) spoke with us about the superposition of quantum computing and fashion.
If you want to learn more about quantum computing, check out Kitty's series on Hackaday's Quantum Computing Through Comics.
Kitty works for Microsoft in Quantum Computing (@MSFTQuantum).
Kitty's art and fashion are available on her site, Art By Physicist, and shop shop.kittyyeung.com. Her recent addition is the Constellation Dress. There is a coupon code in the show.
Kitty has some other DIY fashion projects: Made of Mars and Saturn Dress.
@artbyphysicist on Instagram
Chris and Elecia discuss transcripts, listener emails, and brains.
We already have a post about the dangers of using Arduino for professional work.
Elecia got a Cricut Maker to help her make origami and then discovered SVG files were editable (Intro to SVG). She's putting her origami crease patterns in a github repo eleciawhite/origami), where else would you put it?
About brains, Elecia was reading from Smart But Scattered.
Jess Frazelle (@jessfraz) of Oxide Computer (@oxidecomputer) spoke with us about hyperscalers (large companies that make their own datacenter server hardware) and podcasts.
Jess wrote an article about the power efficiency measurements of datacenter servers: Power to the People (ACM Queue August 2020).
The Oxide podcast is available on oxide.computer/podcast as well as your usual podcast apps. Jess particularly recommended the episode with Jonathan Blow.
Oxide is working to make hyperscaler-style hardware available to everyone. Their goal is to open source all their hardware and software: github.com/oxidecomputer. They use the Rust language for much of their development.
Jess has a blog: blog.jessfraz.com
Roger Linn (@roger_linn) gave us new ideas about musical instruments, detailing how wonderful expressive control, 3D buttons, and keyscanning can be.
Roger's company is Roger Linn Design. We talked extensively about the LinnStrument, some about the AdrenaLinn for guitar, and only a little bit about the analog drum machine Tempest.
A key matrix circuit is a popular way to handle a large number of buttons but it falls prey to n-key rollover. Roger adds force sense resistors to this (FSR example at Sparkfun).
If you have an idea for an instrument, Roger has already written his response to your request for a prototype. Roger gave a keynote address at ADC '16 about the LinnStrument, including showing the sounds it can make.
OHMI Trust is the one handed musical instrument society enabling music making for everyone.
Roger mentioned some other expressive instruments including:
Phoenix Perry (@phoenixperry) returns to speak with us about education and the importance of merging art and technology.
Phoenix's website is phoenixperry.com. The art installation crossing the virtual and the physical world was called Forest Day Dream. Phoenix is teaching a free online class: Create Expressive Video Games.
Phoenix is the Master's degree coordinator for University of the Arts London Creative Computing Institute.
Diversity and accessibility are important, some resources:
Archaeologies of Touch: Interfacing with Haptics from Electricity by David Paris
Critical Play: Radical Game Design by Mary Flanagan
Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O'Neil
Gone Home (Steam game)
Her Story (Steam game)
Bury me, my Love (Mobile game)
#selfcare (Mobile game)
Phoenix was previously on Embedded 204: Abuse Electricity
Chris and Elecia talk about getting transcriptions, accessibility, operating systems, and networking.
Elecia recommends reading Haben by Haben Girma (@HabenGirma).
Transcripts will initially be only available to Patreon supporters. To become a Patreon supporter, go to patreon.com/embedded. If you can't be a supporter and still really want the transcripts, hit the contact link.
Chris Gammell's nifty new podcast (video!) is Contextual Electronics.
Want to know more about how operating systems work? Listeners recommended Miro Samek's video series.
Chris answered some questions about LISP networking. More information about the layers of the network can be found in the OSI model. The mobile focused LISP project that Chris worked on is now at openoverlayrouter.org and has pointers for more documentation and code.
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