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.
The Linker post for this Episode: Solving a Different Problem
ThingM's Tod Kurt (@todbot) joined us to talk about the most important part of every embedded system: blinking lights.
ThingM has been making I2C lights (BlinkM, MinM and MaxM) since 2006.
The newer, more productized USB light is the Blink(1) (there is a coupon near the end of the show). Blink(1) had two successful kickstarters (second one).
The BlinkMs have an ATTiny85 (which is also on the Adafruit Trinket). The Blink(1)s have a PIC processor that is small, cheap, and supports USB quite well (PIC16F1455-I/ML and dev kit).
Other smart LEDs include WS28xx (aka NeoPixel) and APA102 (aka DotStar)
Seeed Studio was discussed as a way to get boards built, assembled, even housed. Elecia mentioned Tindie's new CM review site.
Tod is cofounder of Crash Space (@CrashSpaceLA), a Los Angeles based hackspace. They (including Tod) were on the short-lived Mythbusters-hosted Rube Goldberg devices show called Unchained Reaction.
Tod has worked on some neat art projects, including the Crystal Monster and the Cash Machine.
Speaking of blogs, Chris and Elecia are going to start writing after (podcast) action reports forElement 14. More announcements (and actual links) soon.
Don't forget the Chris Savage (Parallax) call for assistance!
Chris Savage (@SavageCircuits) talks about building a community and about stopping projects when life intrudes.
His site is Savage Circuits. He has a YouTube channel. He has Savage Circuit TV which are the longer, more in depth videos and Short Circuit for the shorter ones. Also see his forums.
Chris works for Parallax and had some kit suggestions: BOE-BOT (board of education bot), its successor the ActivityBot, and the ELEV-8 Quadcopter Kit. Chris is also a writer for Nuts and Volts.
At the top of the show, we mentioned Chris' wife. Here is Ken Gracey's request for help. Or you can skip that and use the PayPal link on the Savage Circuits thank you page. (No PayPal account required.)
Same day PCBs?!? Danielle Applestone (@dapplestone) chatted with Chris and Elecia about desktop CNC milling using @OtherMachine's OtherMill.
OtherMill links:
Synthetos TinyG controller (also see the Make write up about TinyG)
BANT (budget, authority, need, timing): more info
Chip Gracey spoke with us about founding @ParallaxInc, chip design, and the Propeller with its many cores.
Some notes on open sourcing the Propeller
Elecia has a very old Propeller Starter kit but is tempted to get the PropStick USB.
Many years ago, Chris got a Basic Stamp 2 module (like this one) to control a camera in his RC airplane:
Erin McKean (@emckean) is a lexicographer, programmer, and start-up founder. We spoke to her about Wordnik (the online uber dictionary), Reverb (smarter recommendations), and her many books.
Erin has written many books, some about words, one about dresses (The Hundred Dresses), and one fiction novel about The Secret Lives of Dresses. She has also given two TED talks.
Brian Garner talks about skunked words in his book Modern American Usage
Five Intriguing Things via Tiny Letter [Feb 2, 2015: This link is broken today but it is the right link, google "Five Intriguing Things" to see if they've fixed it.]
Elecia's Wordy project if fully documented over on Hackaday
Scott Miller built a hula hoop with Bluetooth, an inertial measurement unit, a 32-bit processor, an 8-bit processor, and a slew of individually addressable LEDs. It makes wild patterns when you move.
Scott's "normal" company, with all of its ham radio equipment, is Argent Data Systems. The hula hoops are Hyperion Hoops.
You can buy a hoop. They are also on Facebook or you can watch the mesmerizing lightshow on YouTube (also here and here).
Yes, the hula hoop does speak DMX512, doesn't everybody?
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.
Choose Your Own Adventure books (Amazon, wiki)
Star Trek: The Next Generation (imdb, Amazon)
321 Contact, show and magazine (imdb (tv))
The Muppets Show (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.
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.
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