Gustavo Pezzi spoke with us about using fun and simple systems to explain low-level concepts and how they work in higher-level engineering tasks. For example, teaching microprocessor concepts using Atari 2600 assembly and physics by creating a simple game engine.Gustavo’s...

Phillip Johnston joined us to talk about how engineering approaches can change over time. This conversation started with Phillip’s Embedded Artistry blog post How Our Approach to Abstract Interfaces Has Changed Over the Years. His new course is Designing Embedded Software...

Chris and Elecia chat about origami, learning, whether to future proof tools or buy the cheaper option, simulators, and classes.Elecia is gearing up to teach another Making Embedded Systems course. Sign up if you want to be in the Yellow...

Chris Hobbs talks with Elecia about safety critical systems. Safety-critical systems keep humans alive. Writing software for these embedded systems carries a heavy responsibility. Engineers need to understand how to make code fail safely and how to reduce risks through...

Dan White, CEO of Filament Games, spoke to us about educational games, how to make play part of learning, and simulating robots. We also discussed what makes a good (or bad) learning experience, the limits of games as educational tools,...

Mohit Bhoite makes functional electronic sculptures from components and brass wire. We spoke with him on the hows and whys of making art.Mohit’s sculptures, including the Tie Fighter. More on his instagram: mohitbhoiteJiri Prause has a wonderful tutorial on how...

Eric Schlaepfer and Windell Oskay are the authors of Open Circuits: The Inner Beauty of Electronic Components. We discussed the inner beauty of a number of electronic components as well as cameras, photography, writing, preparing samples, and terrible title puns.You...

Chris and Elecia question embedded systems then answer listener questions about embedded systems. They mostly agree except about one thing which, after some discussion, they agree upon. Mostly.Video of Cissy Strut cover where Chris plays all of the instrumentsVideo where...

Alexandra Covor spoke with us about engineering, making, drawing, school, and what it means to be an artist. Alex’s projects are on GitHub and Hackster.io. Her electronics comics can be found as PikaComics on Instagram.The 2022 Open Hardware Summit named Alex...

John Catsoulis is the founder of Udamonic and creator of the Forth-based Scamp development board. He spoke with us about Forth, electrical engineering, and writing a technical bookFind out more about Udamonic’s Scamp at udamonic.com. There are some hardware projects...

Lead Solution Architect at Cymotive, Benny Meisels spoke with us about implementing embedded software security in cars. The discussion touches ECUs, IoT vehicles, threat and risk analysis, and how reverse engineering plays a role in security testing.Benny works at Cymotive...

Laura Abbott of Oxide Computing spoke with us about a silicon bug in the ROM of the NXP LPC55, affecting the TrustZone. More information about the two issues are in the Oxide blog:Another vulnerability in the LPC55S69 ROMExploiting Undocumented Hardware Blocks...

Chris and Elecia chat about practice, software quality, and empathy for seemingly unmotivated team members. Elecia is teaching another cohort of Making Embedded Systems in the fall, starting late August. There will be reminders between now and then but if you...

Tom Anderson returned to the show to describe how transistors and passives work. We discuss everything from vacuum tubes to diodes to transistors (PNP and NPN) to resistors and capacitors. We search for synonyms among the confusing terminology of cathodes,...

Ethan Slattery joined us to talk about animals, animal trackers, and how they work.Ethan works for Wildlife Computers. They use the Argos Network for data transfer. He was previously at MBARI and worked with Engineers for Exploration as an undergraduate.Ethan...

Amanda “w0z” Wozniak spoke with us about her career through biomedical engineering and startups. Amanda contributed a chapter to Building Open Source Hardware: DIY Manufacturing. (A book we spoke with Alicia Gibb about in #289.) Amanda’s chapter was titled Design Process:...

Chris and Elecia chat about tools, interrupts, and general happenings. Thank you to Newark for supporting the show! The part that was not guessed was an RF FET: MRF1K50HR5.Elecia found MCU on Eclipse (Eric Styger)’s tutorials on Visual Studio Code for...

Dr. Shirley Davis spoke with us about her book: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion For Dummies.Dr. Davis is a speaker and consultant on diversity, equity, and inclusion topics; her website is drshirleydavis.com. Dr. Davis’ books include:Diversity, Equity & Inclusion For DummiesLiving Beyond “What...

This week we talk about CircuitPython (@CircuitPython) with @adafruit’s Kattni Rembor (@kattni) and Scott Shawcroft (@tannewt).The suggested first board is CircuitPlayground Express with LEDs, sensors, and buttons. CircuitPython is also available for many other boards including the BLE Feather (NRF52832).For...

Machine learning engineer and science fiction author S. B. Divya joined us to talk about artificial intelligence, robotics, and humanity.Divya’s first full-length book is Machinehood which has been nominated for a Nebula (as was her novella Runtime).You can find more...

Mihir Shah of Royal Circuits joined us to talk about how PCBs are fabricated and how companies are funded. Mihir was CEO of InspectAR before they were acquired by Cadence.Mihir works for Royal Circuits and runs a newsletter called TheAnalog.ioWe...

Jorvon Moss (Odd Jayy) joined us to talk about making robots, steampunk aesthetics, uploading consciousness to AIs, and the importance of drawing.You can find Jay on Twitter (@Odd_Jayy) and Instagram (@odd_jayy). He’s been moving his Hackster projects over to Digikey’s...

Chris and Elecia talk about burnout, a SPI + RTOS bug, newsletters, receiving feedback, Elecia’s class, and listener projects.Elecia’s Making Embedded Systems course on Classpert is starting a new cohort on March 19th. She gave a live talk related to the...

Reinhard Keil joined us to talk about creating the Keil compiler, the 8051 processor, Arm’s CMSIS, and the new cloud-based Keil Studio IDE. MDK-Community is a new free-for-non-commercial use, not-code-size restricted version of the Keil compiler (+ everything else). CMSIS is a...

Shawn Hymel spoke to us about creating education videos and written tutorials; marketing by and for engineers; and bowties.You can find Shawn teaching FPGAs, RTOSs and other interesting topics on Digikey’s YouTube channel. Shawn also has two embedded Machine Learning...