Valve's Alan Yates (@vk2zay) spoke with us about the science and technology of virtual reality. Elecia looked at the iFixIt Teardown of the HTC Vive system as she was unwilling to take apart Christopher's system. Alan shared some of his other favorite reverse engineering efforts: Doc OK’s Lighthouse videos, documentation on github by nairol, and a blog by Trammell Hudson. Alan's sensor circuit diagrams were on twitter: SparkleTree sensor circuit (think simplified) and the closer-to-production Lighthouse sensor. Make Magazine talked about Valve's R&D Lab. This is important in case you want to work at Valve (they are currently hiring for EE but if that doesn't describe you and you want to work there, apply anyway). Alan also has a website (vk2zay.net) though it doesn't see much updating right now.

Kat Scott (@kscottz) gave us an introduction to computer vision. She co-authored the O'Reilly Python book Practical Computer Vision with SimpleCV: The Simple Way to Make Technology See. The book's website is SimpleCV.org. Kat also suggested looking at the samples in the OpenCV Github repo. To integrate computer vision into a robot or manufacturing system, Kat mentioned ROS (Robot Operating System, ROS.org). Buzzfeed had an article about SnapChat Filters. Kat works at Planet. And they are still hiring.

Daniel Hienzsch (@rheingoldheavy) and Majenta Strongheart (majentastronghe_art) gave us suggestions on setting up a home shop and information on setting up a maker space. Daniel is the resident engineer at SupplyFrame's Pasadena Design Lab. He still the owns and runs RheingoldHeavy.com, a company devoted to educational boards, as we talked about on episode 115: Datasheeps. Majenta's web page is MajentaStrongheart.com. We talked more about School of the Art Institute of Chicago with Sarah Petkus in 142: New and Improved Appendages.

Chris and Elecia talk to each other about compiler optimizations, bit banging I2C, listener emails, and small-town parades. Games to learn/play with assembly languages include The Human Resource Machine by Tomorrow Corporation and TIS-100 by Zachtronics. We've been enjoying the Embedded Thoughts blog. And Chris is reading Practical Electronics for Inventors and liking it. We talked a little about Interview.io's adventure in voice changing. Shirts are gone for awhile. New logo stickers are available at StickerMule if you'd like to support and share the show.

Fabien Chouteau of AdaCore (@AdaCoreCompany) spoke with us about the Make with Ada Programming Competition. Boards are STILL AVAILABLE. Say the magic words and they might be yours. If you also email. The Ada programming language (wiki) is interesting in that it was designed for safety critical embedded systems (actually designed, requirements doc and everything!). The Ada Information Clearinghouse has a nice list of tutorials and books as does the very helpful Make with Ada Getting Started page. Elecia's favorite was Inspirel's Ada on Cortex. Some neat projects in Ada that we mentioned on the show: Fabien's CNC Controller (with code in github) Tetris on a Smart Watch (with a formal proof via SPARK) Nano drone flight controller (with formal proof via SPARK) The platforms supported in the contest are on the Getting Started page but you can expand that by looking at the SVD files in the AdaCore drivers on github. (Also, SVD files are neat.) One of the platforms already supported is the Crazyflie nanodrone.

Robb Walters of Flybrix (@flybrix) spoke with us about LEGO-based drones. We graciously let him leave with all his hardware. This time. For a limited time, you can get an Embedded.fm tshirt: teespring.com/embedded-fm. Order by the end of June or miss out. (More info about the shirts.) You can order your Flybrix kit and or read their controller code on github (or their controller app code). Robb mentioned a C++ book he liked, it was Effective Modern C++: 42 Specific Ways to Improve Your Use of C++11 and C++14 by Scott Meyers. He also noted LEGO bricks resale sites: Brickowl and Bricklink. LEGO Digital Designer looks like a fun way to design builds. Cascade PID controllers are on Wikipedia (though I found this tutorial a little easier). The congratulations offered at the top of the show were to Meshpoint.me for winning the Best Humanitarian Tech of the Year at the Europas Conference.

Jeri Ellsworth (@jeriellsworth) spoke with us about the latest developments at CastAR, hiring engineers, and her favorite engine. Embedded.fm T-Shirts are available until the end of June on Teespring (more info). CastAR is making an augmented reality system. They are in Palo Alto, CA, USA and they are hiring. They work with Playground. Jeri was last on Embedded.fm episode 23: Go For Everything I Want.

It's happening all across the country, for complicated reasons: Schools are closing. And this is disproportionately affecting poor, black students. Shereen Marisol Meraji and Chris Benderev go to Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania to ask kids, parents, and teachers what it's like when the neighborhood school that's been there for more than a century is about to shut down. Follow Kelly McEvers @KellyMcEvers, Shereen Marisol Meraji @RadioMirage, and Chris Benderev @cbndrv. Email us at [email protected].

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Jonathan Bradshaw spoke with us about working with hardware engineers, schematic reviews, and FPGAs. At the end of the podcast, Jonathan made a pitch for folks to submit proposals for the IEEE Southern Power Electronics Conference in Auckland in December. The FPGA boards Elecia mentioned were the XLR8 board and the Papillio platform (more on the latter in show #66). By the way, The Amp Hour is our “enemy podcast” but we actually like their show quite a lot. It is a joke. But do feel free to tweet their shameless advertising tweet with the link replaced with one to our show. And weta are neat! (Image, wiki)

Reporter Rebecca Hersher spent three months in Greenland trying to understand why that country has the highest suicide rate in the world. And then, the story came to her. Follow Kelly McEvers on Twitter @KellyMcEvers and Rebecca Hersher @rhersher. Email us at [email protected].

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