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An Interview with Zach Barth of Zachtronics Jan 20, 2017

Show notes

Zach started and still runs a game studio that makes games for engineers, Zachtronics.
Some of their popular titles are:
Zach got started making games as a student at Rensselar Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
Prior to making games full time, he worked at Microsoft on Vizio
After Ironclad Tactics didn't go as well as they wanted, they shut down the studio for 1 year.
During the shutdown period, he worked at valve with the Vive HTC / Valve Hardware team (Jeri, Jeff, Ben and Alan have all been on the show)
Shenzhen I/O was partially inspired by Valve HW.
After Valve, Zachtronics was sold to Alliance and they now work with them to produce games.
The games are all coded in C#, but the engines used are either Unity or self-made.
Infiniminer is credited as the inspiration for Minecraft, which was sold to Microsoft for $2.5B. Minecraft introduced the idea of the "Fantasy of Labor".
Dave has written and published his own game.

"The thing I learned through all of this stuff[...]escapism isn't evil and education isn't good. A lot of people talk about education as if it's some kind of monolithic valuable thing[...]but that's kind of not how it actually works." ~Zach Barth

Shenzhen I/O is about an engineer that moves to China to work on hardware. So weird.
A user created a Tetris game inside the game. The marketing for Zachtronics is basically users sharing these internal creations.
Game enginers often drive other games. Garry's mod is an example of this. MOBAs are another example.
Ruckingenur-ii got started with exposure on Hackaday.
Zachtronics games now have analytics to tell when puzzles are working or just too hard. They also do surveys at the end of infinifactory levels.
When prepping for developing Shenzhen I/O, the started by watching Dave's video on a tablet teardown.
Chippy was a play on Clippy, and apparently someone did cosplay for that.

Many thanks to Zach for stopping by the show! It was really interesting learning about the video game industry, expecially games that are made for engineers. For more from Zach, check out his AMA on reddit.

Visit Zachtronics.com for more info about the games and company. Buy all of the games on Steam. You can buy some of the titles DRM free on Good Old Games and Humble Bundle

An Interview with Simone Giertz Jan 13, 2017

Show notes

Welcome, Simone Giertz! (@simonegiertz)

Simone's company back in Sweden is called Artificial Stupidity
Since creating her first robot GIF a couple years ago, Simone has been crowned the "queen of shitty robots".
Chris first met Simone at HardwareCon in 2014. She was working with Colin Karpfinger at PunchThrough, makers of the Light Blue Bean.
Simone's great-great-grandfather was one of the founders of Ericsson!
The kits Simone has been using lately are from Vex Robotics. Previously she has showcased items from Actobotics.
Simone is mulling the idea of making her own Maker Kits, but has dealt with sourcing issues.
Chris talked about his machining journey and highly recommended the Guerrilla Guide to Machining. This shows methods for making molds for small gears, which can be used to gear down high RPM motors.
Simone has also been working at Tested.com. She works alongside Adam Savage and the other crew there.
Beginners mind (Shoshin) is important when teaching and learning new subjects.
Simone has been building out her lab and made a "favorite things" video for 2016.
As part of her sponsorship agreements (the good ones that stuck around!), she visited CES last week.
Chris called out the Internet of Shit twitter moment that showcased some bogus gadgets.
One of Simone's favorite things there was the Furrion racing robot. This would be a racing league in the same way that Megabots will be a robot fighting league.
Simone has a new show for premium viewers called "It might work".

Thanks to Simone for stopping by! For those who listen past the credits, here is the tweet Chris is referencing.

An Interview with Zach Fredin Jan 06, 2017

Show notes

Welcome, Zach Fredin of NeuroTinker!

Follow the ongoing project documentation of the Neurobyte project on Hackaday.io!
Zach and Chris have known each other since 2004! They went to CWRU together.
Zach got into the world of neurons when a friend started simulating them in Sketchup (formerly Google, now owned by Trimble)
Watch the NeuroBytes in action on instagram or on YouTube (follow Zach's channel for a range of videos, including side projects)

testing fifty #neurobytes on the #demorug

A video posted by We make NeuroBytes! (@neurotinker) on Mar 22, 2016 at 4:39pm PDT

He partnered with Joe Burdo after they connected on Hackaday.io. When checking out Joe's credentials, Zach realized "The link was purple!"
See Zach and Joe talking about NeuroBytes at Maker Faire NY 2016
They got initial funding via SBIR
NIH was funding STEM games but they didn't get that funding
NSF was funding "Educational applications", which they did get!
Tips for SBIR grant
- Email the grant director
- Get solid letters of support (customers)
- RTFM
Money
- Phase 1 (success) - $150K
- Phase 2 (pending) - $750K
Zach was surprised that they build in the ability to pivot but said, "Do you know how much paperwork a pivot would be?"
If someone wants to see their application, email zach@neurotinker.com
They used Keytronic EMS for manufacturing. It is local in Minneapolis.
The design has 5 dendrites, 2 axons and is connected via JST connectors/wire. Or check out their quickstart guide for more info.
He's still looking for the link to the multidisciplinary article for STEM, if you know what he was talking about please leave a comment.
Selling into education is tough. Little Bits has been doing that well (and raised $60M+ to do so)
For Christmas Zach got a Flir Lepton sensor and the Seeed studio ESP32S.
Zach made an oscilloscope using the Teensy and a 240x320 TFT. It was based off the printed guide Paul Stoffregen used in his training at the 2015 Hackaday Superconference.
As a fan of soldering, Zach has done some fun breakout for chips (when needed) and also hand-carves boards for prototyping.

Keep your fancy automated assembly boards, I'll take a hack any day (hanging with NeuroTinker)

A photo posted by Chris Gammell (@chrisgammell) on Oct 2, 2016 at 10:13am PDT

Not available online, but Zach used to watch the Heathkit video guide to soldering
Chris mentioned a presentation where they talked about how records are made.

Follow NeuroTinker on Instagram and Twitter

Work on it for 10 years... Dec 30, 2016

Show notes

Welcome, Elecia (@LogicalElegance) and Chris (@Stoneymonster) from @EmbeddedFM for a holiday special Ampbedded (EmbHour?) episode.

Embedded will be having a Hats and Hacks party in Aptos, CA. You can come! RSVP on Eventbrite.
Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation
Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise
Analog Discovery vs Saleae
Embedded blog (with Andrei Chichak and Chris Svec) including a post on podcasts we listen to
Hemingway App, useful for making writing clearer and simpler
Tweezer sets make excellent gifts
The Way Things Work Now is an update on a classic book
Flybrix is a LEGO drone platform for learning control systems and flight robotics. The founder was on Embedded #157.
Nordic nRF52
makexyz: 3D printing in your neighborhood
Fusion 360
Video of Tesla seeing two cars ahead, having an accident
The LDC1000 has never been attached to a Bluetooth sensor
Free calculus book online: Single Variable Calculus: Early Transcendentals. There are other online textbooks approved by the American Institute of Mathematics.
Raptitude’s Maybe You Don’t Have a Problem
Isaac Asimov is a great inspiration: Medium Post by Charles Chu

Thank you for listening to The Amp Hour for another year! See you in 2017!

The Ghost of Keyzermas Past Dec 23, 2016

Show notes

Welcome back Jeff Keyzer, AKA Mightyohm!

Jeff's coworker Alan Yates' talk from SuperCon was just released. He was also on The Amp Hour in the past.
Jeff's other former coworker Ben Krasnow gave a fantastic talk about prototyping.
After reading The Idea Factory by John Gertner, Jeff decided to make a pilmigridge to various sites at Bell Labs.
He saw the original transistor up close and personal.
Former guest Shahriar currently works at Bell Labs at The Murray Hill facility. There is a visitor center there.
Two books about the HP garage/life were the HP Way and Bill and Dave.
It's amazing thinking about what they went through with the first transistors. Jeri talked about surface state issues with semiconductors when she was trying to make her own transistors.
The Crawford Hill area is being developed real estate developers
At this location, Jeff stood need to the feedhorn that initially measured background radiation in the universe.
Wilson talk on YouTube
The feedhorn was super sensitive because of a liquid helium cooled MASER
George Smoot wrote a book about lumpy radiation when measuring with the kobe satellite
Janskys are a unit of apparent brightness for radio astronomy
Jeff is still working at Valve, continuing his manufacturing support for the Steam controller. Awesome video of them being assembled here.
When looking at huge amounts of statistical data, tools like JMP and MiniTab allow you to analyze. Jeff also recommends using python to massage data before JMP.
Viewing this data allows you to compare test setups with analysis like gauge R&R.
Sourcing parts for smaller builds can prove challenging. Somewhere between prototype and high volume production, you can get stuck trying to buy lots of parts from distribution. Chris wrote about this in his building a badge post.
The Batterizer has started shipping
The EEZ-h24005 will start funding soon.
Jeff still selling the geiger counter kit and the rescue shield.
Chris will not be going to 33c3, sadly.
Jeff likes that his alma mater (UC San Diego) has started a maker space and that schools are focusing on hands-on labs. Former guest Kent Lundberg did this with a class where they did teardowns of electronics and prototyped lots of circuits.

An Interview with Avidan Ross Dec 16, 2016

Show notes

Welcome, Avidan Ross of Root ventures!

Root is a seed stage fund concentrating on hardware in 3 categories:
- Low cost robotics
- picks and shovels
- Supplychain mfg / logistics
Some of the portfolio companies our audience might recognize:
- Particle
- Shaper (nee Taktia) - Former guest Jeremy Blum now works there and former guest Nadya Peek talked about her friend founding the company.
- Instrumental - consumer electronics / yield tools. Wrote last week about the Note 7 fires.
The stages of funding
- Seed - build initial product, find product fit
- Series A - Trying to scale and grow (might have sold $1M, want to sell $10M)
- Other series - > proven, VCs trying to get a piece of the lower risk pie
- Series B is almost always done with an excel spreadsheet
Hardware is the "Triple black diamond" of the startup world
Avidan's background:
- Start building modems
- Was the CTO at a energy/hardware investment company
- "Capital efficient hardware" was the trigger and he started the fund about 6 years ago
Avidan gave a talk at the Hackaday Supercon about food hacking
The Root Venture fund raised $31,415,926.53 fund.
Avidan weighs in on the June oven and Juicero. Dave talks about Paul Reynolds blog about it.
Avidan studied glassblowing at the Sydney college of the arts. Later traveled to Instanbul, Sweden to study.
Patents are good for the defensive case, but the open source model isn't necessarily a great solution.
Particle example - open source hardware, fleet management web software is
Steven Levy interviewed Eric from Pebble.
1/3 of companies in Root are consumer, rest are B2B / industrial
Arcam, bought by GE
3 ways for Root to exit
- Company goes public
- Company gets bought
- Root.vc can sell part of their share (sold on the secondary market)
HAX, Bolt, Lemnos, Highway 1
Reach them on Twitter! @RootVC, @AvidanRoss, @Kane
Also check out Kane's account @MachinePix for awesome animated GIFs.

Magical Fire Bags Dec 09, 2016

Show notes

Chris had a successful meetup in Chicago. It's called "3H" if you're in town and would like to join.
Chris is trying to get a the "Bodge" shirt made again, since he stupidly forgot to get one last time.
Dave has been workin on a Nixie project, part 1, part 2, part 3
The most dangerous writing app is a site that erases your work if you stop typing.
Dave is working with an ESP8266 module, the Wemos d1 mini.
There is a layer of internet that lots of IoT devices use, similar to the service from Particle (formerly Spark).
Pebble is shutting down. Their internet layer will shut down as well. We had Andrew, CTO of Pebble, on the show in the past.
Bryce from Indie.vc writes about getting pitched "Trillion" dollar plans before they even started.
The 3D printing revolution that wasn't. An indepth article about MakerBot.
We had Zach Smith on in the past. The documentary Print The Legend (on Netflix) was also a good look at the situation.
Ken Sherriff wrote (in 2013) about how the Intel manual has more pages than a 6502 has transistors.
Dave talks about databooks. He proposes a hackathon/reality tv show idea where the people can't use the internet.
ADUCM350
Qibec - 1-bit, 1-instruction CPU made from transistors
Instrumental takes a look inside the Galaxy Note 7.
Collin wrote in when the Macrofab folks were on the show talking about batteries last time. He called them "Magical Fire Bags". He also sent a link about dielectrics.
Supercon talks
- Akiba
- Nadya
- Sprite
- Ben talk
Ben's video about 360 slowmo. We had David Kronstein on the show last week.
Alan talked about the prototyping method when he was on embedded.
Ben's Backscatter video
There is an electric/hydrogen truck by Nikola motors
Most US manufacturing jobs lost to technology, not trade

Next week we'll be talking to Avidan Ross, head of Root.vc. Write in to our subreddit with questions about money.

An Interview with David Kronstein (Tesla500) Dec 02, 2016

Show notes

Welcome, David Kronstein (Tesla500)!

David is the creator of the Krontech Chronos 1.4 high speed camera currently funding on Kickstarter.
Dave has already reviewed this camera...on camera.
Check out the tesla500 youtube channel. David also runs the "Will it Mow" channel.
PhantomV4
David is considering a die cast mold for the case, depending on volumes.
The battery is an off the shelf, common camera battery.
OurPCB is doing the assembly in China. $100 per board in low volume, with 1000 placements, 130 line items.
The main FPGA is the Lattice ECP5.
The main processor is the DaVinci TMS320DM8148 running embedded Linux
The main sensor is the Lumxima LUX1310
CMOS vs CCD
The FPGA only has 15% utilization.
The KS offers monochrome and color versions because monochrome maintains higher resolution. This is explained by a Bayer Color filter in hardware.
The FPS1000 was a lower cost high speed camera on KS.
One big risk to the process is David is looking at chaning the toolchain for the TI chip because of processing power. He's looking at ridgerun, a 3rd party embedded development house.
The camera has ADC inputs for displaying data over the images.
It will be compatible with Genlock.
David also desigend a 5 kW LED rig but won't be selling it. He may open source the waterblock design or sell just that piece.
We had some great questions from our audience, hopefully we got them all answered.
Ben Krasnow did a great "bullet time" video using the camera.
Photonic induction doesn't have a camera yet but he did a fun video with a pumpkin at Halloween.
Interested in embedded Linux? Send a resume to jobs@krontech.ca
You can learn more about David's company at Krontech.ca
Pre purchase your own Chronos 1.4 camera over on Kickstarter. Or check out the Datasheet for the camera.

Community Announcements!

Meetup in Chicago on 12/6
Contest to win a signed copy of The Art of Electronics!
- Tweet about this episode! (click to get a prefilled tweet or compose your own and send a screenshot to contest@theamphour.com)
- Post to Facebook (send a screenshot to contest@theamphour.com)
- Send an email to a coworker about this episode (copy contest@theamphour.com)
  - Example Email:
  - "Hey _______, I listen to a show about electronics called The Amp Hour. They have a contest where I can win a signed copy of The Art of Electronics if I mention their latest show to you, which was an interview with the creator of a high speed camera. It was all about FPGAs and image sensors and getting a product made. Check it out here: https://theamphour.com/the-amp-hour-325-an-interview-with-david-kronstein-tesla500/"

And finally, shredded wheat.

Mapping Out Nerdery Nov 25, 2016

Show notes

Back this week for a Thanksgiving-adjacent show!

Dave has a new 80s intro.
Chris used to watch Bill Nye, Dave used to watch the Curiosity show.
Dave did a review of Tesla500's camera. He is our planned guest for next week!
On Hackaday, they wrote about the fact that IoT has no standard, but could have with Twitter (using tweet meta data)
Cringely wrote about saving the IoT
There was a recent critique about Nest's business model, instead saying that all IoT hardware should be sold as a service
The OSI layer model.
Chris met and was talking with Amelia, the head of GE's new Fuse program. It's a B2B contest for hard problems like detecting welds. This is similar to their previous First Build program, before the GE Appliance group was sold to a Chinese company.
Chris just found out about the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. How did he not know about that? There should be some kind of Nerd Map...and now there will be! NerdyMap.com was just bought by Chris!
Dave found an old intro to his proposed travel youtube channel.
Business expenses are important for consultants. Not mentioned on air, but Embedded had a great episode with their accountant.
Hackster bought by Avnet.
Siemens buys Mentor Graphics.
Micrium bought by SiLabs.
The Open V project just launched on Crowd Supply! It is the first fully open source chipset and has a hefty goal ($480K). Consider backing the $99 kit, as this seems like it would allow you to immediately start playing with that chip.
Check out their GitHub repo!
The documentation and scope of this project (for a teenager, let alone anyone) is amazing. Read about how to build an SDR from scratch.
Chris thought that Dave had said "Documentation is a waste of time". It turns out that was his former co-worker.
There is a new LIDAR chip from Osram that is only $5.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our US listeners. And we are thankful for our Patreon sponsors!

Thanks to Patrick Barry for the map

An Interview with Tony DiCola Nov 18, 2016

Show notes

Welcome Tony DiCola of Adafruit!

Tony has been working on MicroPython tutorials since joining Adafruit
Python has been around for a long time, but most people are referring to Cpython. It has a large fan base and lots of library support like NumPy and SciPy.
Micropython was developed in 2013 by Damien George for memory constrained environments. It has roughly 90% compatibility with regular Python.
Python runs on other higher power platforms like the BeagleBone black and Raspberry Pi, which Adafruit also has lots of great tutorials about.
There are limited number of boards running MicroPython
- PyBoard - STM32F4
- ESP8266 - 84 MHz, 96k
- BBC Micro:bit (Uses an NRF51 - 16K)
- CC3100 WiPy
- SAMD21 - CortexM0, 32K, 48 MHz
MicroPython shows a REPL when you connect via serial port. It looks very much like a command prompt.
You can mix C and MicroPython, which makes it an interesting candidate for low level hardware operations. You can also hook into assembly using a special decorator. Compilation happens in pre processor.
There is a default FAT file system in flash.
You can boot right into a script by having main.py in the file system. Other files can be used in the file system to represent libraries.
PIP is a default way to install libraries on desktop Python, this might get added to MicroPython.
The .mpy file format is a condensed versions of files, which prevents comments take up room in flash / ram.
ESA is considering using MicroPython on satellites because they are relatively easier to reconfigure.
Chris has been using the Huzzah Feather board and the associated LED Featherwing. Great for trying out the setup!
Follow Tony and the Adafruit feed on Twitter!

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