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Welcome, Larry Sears!
- Our first in-studio guest ever!
- Larry is currently an adjunct lecturer at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland (Chris’ alma mater)
- After school, he was a teaching assistant and soon after started a design and build company called Hexagram.
- One of the earlier products was working on the MeisterMatic600, a computerized embroidery machine
- Since he wanted to develop a turnkey, proprietary product for someone, he chose gas meter reading.
- Initially, the wired device required a person to walk up to a wall and take a reading
- Later, they “bet the farm” on the STAR system, which worked with cellphones and low frequency RF
- Hexagram was bought by ESCO in 2006
- Shortly thereafter, Larry set up an endowment to ensure students would have a place to tinker.
- Larry is working on a new project at Case, think[box] (previously mentioned in episode 53 of The Amp Hour)
- This will be a makerspace/incubator/classroom housed in a 50K+ sq ft building.
Many thanks to Larry for making the trip to Chris’s house for the interview! You can reach him at Sears@case.edu
Thanks to Larry and Case.edu for the images.
This was a fantastic show! Thanks for the stories and experience shared by Larry.
Awesome story about the gas meters… I am surprised people didn’t yet come up with the conspiracy theory that “THEY” and their supposedly harmless RF meters are reprogramming people’s brains, causing cancer, etc, etc, etc… 🙂
Being a hardware guy, I share your vision about having hardware knowledge as an important piece to have when going to the workplace, However, my opinion about the ability of hardware guys in creating software changed a bit after some years of working with a mix of microcontrollers and embedded processors. Typically the low-end is perfectly covered by me (or us HW engineers), but the complexity of the high-end embedded processors (true computers on a single chip) demand a level of planning that throws my bit-banging knowledge through the window.. 🙂 And I am not only talking about embedded operating systems, but also multi-core and co-processed devices.
Obviously that I can learn that too, but I sometimes see myself pleasantly surprised by the human genius behind some of the most interesting and creative ways when using C language…
I am surprised people didn’t yet come up with the conspiracy theory that “THEY” and their supposedly harmless RF meters are reprogramming people’s brains, causing cancer
There’s plenty of RF meter paranoia: http://bit.ly/PyqKkh
I spent many many hours playing with LEGO Mindstorms as a kid and loved it.
From there I moved on to a “600 in 1” spring terminal board and “short circuits” kits, simple circuits of my own and then PICAXE, I did a few more projects with Arduino and other things in my high school years and now I’m studying 1st year EE at LaTrobe in Melbourne.
They are using an arduino clone to teach us the basics of microcontrollers, and I think I’m the only one who has actually designed and built a circuit by myself. (It is only a small class, about 20) A few of the kids have a lot of experience with software but most of them didn’t know a resistor from a cap before they started.
I can identify with the problem of not having access to tools because I moved about 4 hours away to come here.
Thanks for a great show, it has given me a great insight into the world of EE.
I’m fairly new to The Amp Hour podcasts, and my shoulders dropped a little when I saw that this episode was one guest for the whole show. I wanted to say how much I enjoyed this show. Larry had a fascinating story to tell, and was very witty. Thanks guys.
This is my last year in high school and i’m involved in our district FIRST robotics team, I’m also taking engineering classes and this is joint effort between Ohio state and Dublin city schools. I’m considering Case Western Reserve, and I am wondering If Chris Gammell could give me a tour of Case… After listening to this pod cast I would really like to meet prof. sears!
He tried to be a freelancer, but obviously there’s no stability in that, so he got out of it. I’ll probably say that in a few years. Great show.
Nice episode – I think the soul of every good engineer just wants to make things too. Early in the show you talked about the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC). One of the historians at InfoAge (http://www.infoage.org), Frank O’Brien has written a book about it. A few years ago, he gave a talk at the Trenton Computer Festival on the AGC:
https://www.tcf-nj.org/proceedings/2009/Apollo%20Guidance%20Computer%202009.pdf
One of the actual AGCs that went to space is on display from time to time at the InfoAge Science Center. I was able to see/touch this unit, and have a nice chat with Frank on the history and design of the AGC – fascinating stuff.
FYI – InfoAge is full of history on its own. I worked there while in college when it was called Camp Evans and was part of Fort Monmouth. During WWII, this was where most of the US Army Signal Corp’s RADAR development was centered. One of the key engineers working on this was Howard Vollum, who later went on to found Tektronix. In the early 1900’s, it was one of the first installations of the new Marconi Wireless Company (before it was confiscated by the Navy during WWI. Lots of history, and some really great exhibits (http://www.infoage.org).
Dear Alan:
Thank you for writing. I’ll put InfoAge on my itinerary the next time I am in the area: it looks like a neat place. Incidentally, my wife and I just traveled to Newfoundland where we visited the village of Hearts Content where the first transatlantic cables were terminated. The Canadian government has done a terrific job of preserving the cable station and you can see all the original equipment. Surprisingly, you can even walk down to the beach and see the actual cables.
Great videos, by the way, and I am planning to use them in my courses.
Hey guys!
Just wanted to be one more person saying that this was an awesome show! Very very interesting, stayed in my car on the parking to listen to the end!
Larry, thanks a lot for sharing!
thomas
Many thanks for this extraordinary show. Charlie