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- Dave just got back from Electronex
- Chris uses Boomerang to return emails. This is better than letting the amount of emails build up to the point of needing to “declare email bankruptcy”
- Ahmed, a 14 year old hardware enthusiast from Dallas, was arrested when he brought his clock project to school.
- Ahmed seems like a pretty collected individual for being a teenager. Here he talks about the experience:
- Mike from Hackaday wrote about building clocks in conjunction with NYC Resistor.
- Chris just got back from XOXO which was an emotional and awesome conference.
- In order to make more connections, Chris made a blinking badge.
- You can see past years videos on the XOXO youtube page.
- Chris is helping put together a hardware conference in November with Hackaday.
- The BB8 is a fantastic little robot, based on the Sphero.
- Elecia recently did a talk about the guts of the BB8 at the Hardware Developer Didactic Galactic.
- Chris from Bolt wrote about who is investing in hardware.
- After hearing him speak at XOXO, Chris had a chance to talk to Bryce from Indie.vc.
- Dave was surprised that OpenROV is taking investment. They also just launched a new Kickstarter.
- Argonne recently announced a breakthrough in the Mott transition…OK!
- You can write assembly language for a MIPS processor in the browser and simulate it!
- Chris thinks that most designs these days that people will just throw more horsepower at problems.
- Watch a talk relating semiconductor physics to Angry Birds.
- Saar from Boldport discusses the backwards nature of the EDA industry.
Next week we will have Luke from yCombinator talking about the program and their new focus on hardware!
Thanks to svofski for the picture of the nixie tube clock.
Wow, I agree with Dave.
Regarding using assembler; about 12 years ago I went on the war path with assembler. It’s agreed in the literature that a good programmer can write 50 lines of commented, debugged, code a day. 50 lines of assembler does next to nothing, whereas 50 lines of C can do real work.
On our medical device project I gave a budget of 50 lines of assembler. This was enough to boot the processor, set up the memory control registers, set up the stack, and call the C bootstrap code that brings up the rest of the system. I believe I came in a few opcodes high.
On that project, one of the engineers (not a software guy) warned of using a processor that is too small. He had the experience of picking a processor way to early in the project, running out of space, and having the complexity go exponential as he tried to fit 10 pounds of crap into a 5 pound bag.
As Dave said, the C optimizers are very good. These compilers have been developed over many years, by very experienced people, with an eye towards speed, size, and correctness. Processors are being developed assuming that a compiler will be used, and if you have tried to write assembly for X86 or ARM, it’s obvious that the architects are expecting a compiler. PICs are a different story completely, just say no.
Do yourself a favour and use a processor with more resources, speed, and space than you think you will need. This will give you the ability to recover from when the boss comes in and tells you to put a toaster into your refrigerator.
Not sure if SK Ventures will invest in these educational robot platforms, but maybe it could help with Chris’ robot project:
http://www.locorobo.co/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvMA10NuZG8 (UCSD)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTQFQaSYZjk (similar to OLLIE and arcbotics)
http://www.seeedstudio.com/blog/2015/09/07/build-your-own-iot-applications-with-acer-cloud-professor-and-groves/
BTW, looking forward to Bryce dot vc’s talk from XOXO 2015
Those are great links, thanks!
CE is all about building the hardware and programming the firmware. A lot of those programs seem to focus on using existing robots as an interesting introduction to programming (which is great!).
Been listening you eev and amp hour from first day, both Dave’s early videos, and this podcast. But I don’t know if I’ve ever commented before.
Anyway, here is my humble contribution to the Ahmed situation:
I have started ahmedsclock.org
The purpose of this site will be to provide a place for like minded Makers, geeks, teachers, learners, professionals, hobbyists and hams to gather, share info and inspiration, AND to encourage young people to take an interest in the guts of technology of all sorts.
The concept is unformed at this time, so any input is appreciated. Also, if you, or anyone you know, would like to help on the website, please leave a message. Looking for people to contribute content, projects, or be mentors, etc.
And be patient while we build out the site.
Brad
WA5PSA
Right on, Brad! It’s great to see an event like this resulting in so many positive outcomes. Hope to see the website grow & reach many people’s lives.
73
-callsign not disclosed because my fucking name and address are connected with it (I do care a bit about my privacy!)
Hey, thanks. I need help. I’ve got more ideas than I have knowledge. I’ve been playing electronics since 1966. But it’s amazing what I don’t know.
Good initiate.
Kids who show inquisitiveness need to be encouraged.
This whole clock thing was a total scam. Did you listen to the way his “lawyer” handled the press? Very fishy indeed. And there was a massive MIT advertisement in the middle of one prominent USA news program’s coverage saying (to the kid) “You are exactly the kind of student we need at MIT” or words closely similar. Disgusting. Someone is making a LOT of money out of this, mainly social media companies at the expense of the stupid cattle public.
I’m going to stop ranting because my tinfoil hat is starting to slip off. 🙂
People do love their conspiracies, don’t they?
Seriously? USA has been f*****g with the middle east for the last 70 years and before that, it was the UK and you have the audacity to even utter a single word? Yeah it’s xenophobia on a massive scale. 7 black churches torched in 6 days in the good old USA. Muricaaaaa!!!! Muslim = terrorist for more then half of USA and unofficially most people get a twitch. From Christian Conservatives to the Sam Harris looneys who ponder preemptive nuclear strikes on 34% of the world’s population, everybody has something to say. Get real!
Everybody has something to say, yup, that’s how the world works. Welcome to the human race.
dave you talk to match, you only bla bla bla, we all known you because of your videos on youtube, not because your work as good electrical engineer!
There is an un-subscribe button, you are welcome to use it.
You all need to fill yourselves in on the details of this Ahmed story before jumping to conclusions. The kid didn’t build shit; he took apart a store bought alarm clock and put it in a metal pencil case then flashed his “device” around school without explaining exactly what it was, and even went as far as plugging it in and setting off the alarm before finally eliciting the response he was looking for. When the cops and school officials questioned his intentions he refused to explain himself. The kid even admitted that he knew the clock looked suspicious. He knew exactly what he was doing and everybody, even the damn president, ate it up. The kid is definitely very clever, but not with his electronics.
OMG CONSPIRACY U GUYZ
Speaking of assembly there is a project that goes in the opposite path. High level language for microcontroller called OCaPIC: http://www.algo-prog.info/ocapic/web/?id=OCAPIC:OCAPIC
Speaking of assembly language there is a project that goes in the opposite direction.
It is an attempt to have OCaml for PIC and it is called OcaPIC: http://www.algo-prog.info/ocapic/web/?id=OCAPIC:OCAPIC