The Contextual Electronics Podcast

By Contextual Electronics

Bringing together electronics theory, practice, and stories.... more

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How many episodes does The Contextual Electronics Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 16 episodes available.

The Contextual Electronics Podcast episodes:

July 19, 2021CEP015 – Finishing Prototypes with Zack Freedman
This is a crossover episode with The Amp Hour podcast (also made by Chris)
Welcome, Zack Freedman of Voidstar Lab
Zack Freedman is a prototyping engineer turned YouTuber who makes bombastic videos about 3D printed creations and getting projects across the finish line. He joins Chris to talk about his past hardware designs and what he will be building next.
Show Notes
0:00 Introduction
2:05 What Zack is building (a computer)
2:40 A water cooled oscilloscope
3:40 How Zack got started
4:40 Hackaday article
5:20 Bluetooth heads up display
5:40 Hoboken Hackerspace
7:15 NYC electronics scene
8:30 Working with artists
10:00 Working on the set of Mr Robot
11:05 Doing a first run prototype for a startup
13:10 Building skills in high pressure environments and on consulting jobs
17:45 Working on deadlines
19:10 How many projects are in a single video?
20:45 Building subassemblies
21:30 Building projects “backwards” (outside in)
23:00 Not thinking your idea is the last good idea you’ll ever have
24:15 The prototyping mindset
27:00 Ranking risk in a project
29:15 Usability in wearable projects
31:30 “The role of most prototypes is to try to kill the idea”
33:30 What makes people want to buy a prototype?
35:45 Minimizing features in any one prototype / test
36:30 Consumer products should be shown to thousands before going to market
38:00 YouTubers’ battle for attention (check out Voidstar Lab to see all of Zack’s videos)
41:00 YouTube theories
44:45 Zack’s persona
47:00 Filming b-roll to keep things interesting
51:00 YouTube comment positivity
52:25 Maker Twitter
54:00 Full time YouTube
54:20 Changes in the hardware space since 2012
56:40 Prototyping tools
58:30 “The Maker Movement”
59:25 Working for industrial clients
1:01:40 Focusing on the technology vs the purpose of the technology
1:03:30 Building a project because you want the thing (output)
1:05:30 Technology being used to move the world forward
1:07:15 What will Zack build in the future?
1:09:40 The Cyberdeck
1:12:15 Cyberdeck cafe Discord
1:13:10 Building on a stream vs on a video (streams happen on Zack’s Patreon every Monday and Friday)
1:14:40 Previously wanting to go into game design
1:16:30 Providing a representation of what people think the process is
1:17:20 People think IronMan is reality
1:18:20 Bringing people into the field
1:20:25 “Finish more projects”
1:23:30 Going beyond the getting started projects
1:26:20 People genuinely interested in a topic will skip beginner classes
1:27:35 Engineering is intrinsically solitary
1:29:30 Trying to figure out gender discrepancies in making
1:31:05 “What’s it like to put yourself out there?”
1:32:30 Putting yourself out there will help you find more positive feedback
1:35:05 Building community
1:37:00 Finding Zack’s work and joining his community
Patreon
YouTube
Discord
Twitter
Instagram
1:38:40 Conclusion

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1h 40min
July 13, 2021CEP014 – Moving to KiCad V6 with Jon Evans
Welcome, Jon Evans of the KiCad project!
Jon Evans is a longtime developer on the KiCad project and practicing EE at Formlabs. He joins Chris to talk about the future of KiCad, including features that are coming in V6.
Show Notes
0:00 Introduction
2:15 Making changes to the platform
4:00 History of the codebase – Chat with the KiCad team about V6 and beyond
5:05 Jon’s work background – Jon works for Formlabs
8:20 What is coming in KiCad v6?
10:45 Working with legacy code in KiCad
13:30 Looking at an example project
14:50 Schematic editor
18:50 Changes to the schematic UI
21:00 Layout tool
22:45 Changes to the layout UI
24:10 The split of beginner vs advanced users
25:55 The benefits of an open source tool
26:25 Comparison to tools that are cloud based
27:45 The KiCad ecosystem
30:45 KiCad Professional Services
32:00 KiCon 2021
33:10 What is DRC? How is it changing?
37:40 The challenges of live DRC
40:15 Example of DRC
46:05 New python API
48:30 Example project for using python scripting with KiCad
50:00 How the KiCad project works with feature requests
52:15 Working with the console inside KiCad
53:55 What else is Jon excited about in V6?
56:20 KiCad as a professional tool?
1:00:05 Following Jon online
1:02:10 Conclusion
Other links:
Follow Jon on Twitter
KiCad User Forum
KiCad Discord
KiCad Twitter
Thank you for supporting The Contextual Electronics Podcast! Here’s how you can follow and help us grow:
Please follow us on social media:
@ContextualElec on Twitter
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@Chris_Gammell on Twitter
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1h 4min
April 14, 2021CEP013 – Open Source Robotics with Kat Scott
Welcome, Kat Scott of Open Robotics!
Kat is a developer advocate at Open Robotics, the company behind software like the open source Robot Operating System (ROS). Kat joins Chris to talk about how to create high complexity robotic creations and also how to create the lower level electronics that integrate into larger ROS systems. Kat is a member of OSHWA, which defines and certifies Open Source Hardware.
Show Notes
DOT CARMA
NASA VIPER
DARPA Tutorials
Autoware Lecture Series
F1 Tenth
Indy Autonomous Challenge
Virtual Robot X – Maritime Robotics
Njord Robotics
Tahoe Robot
ROS Industrial
ROS for Arms
ROS Nav Stack
Ignition Gazebo Simulation
GazeboSim.org
GazeboSim community
MicroROS
Autoware.ai
The Ministry of Silly Walks
OSHWA
The 2021 Open Source Hardware Summit (now passed, due to delay in releasing this episode)
TurtleBot
The Open Robotics twitter account
Kat Scott’s Twitter account

Thank you for supporting The Contextual Electronics Podcast! Here’s how you can follow and help us grow:
Please follow us on social media:
@ContextualElec on Twitter
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@Chris_Gammell on Twitter
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1h 6min
March 03, 2021CEP012 – Mixed Media with Becky Stern
Welcome, Becky Stern!
Becky is an artist and content producer who works electronics into projects using a wide variety of media and construction techniques. Becky also teaches a class on electronics at SVA in NYC. She is a product manager at Instructables.
Show Notes
Her most recent project: Zodiac Embroidery
Slack status updater
Collaboration with Esetfanie and Naomi
13 ideas for LED diffusion
Raspberry Pi peephole camera
Becky’s recording setup
Instagram
Knitting
How a sewing machine (bobbin) works
Tools page
Becky’s favoite knife
All of the electronics posts on BeckyStern.com
Becky Stern YouTube
Time tags:
0:00 Introduction
1:47 Becky Stern bio
3:34 Building out ideas
4:57 Learning new things
6:36 Collaborations
8:46 LEDs and light in projects
13:20 #SampleCode
14:30 What is a neopixel (WS2812)
16:15 Teaching students
19:55 Getting started programming
21:20 Higher level programming projects
24:20 Troubleshooting remotely
27:00 Best practices for documentation
29:20 Camera tips
33:10 Creating documentation from photos
36:30 Getting started crafting
40:05 “Getting to blinky” for crafts
42:15 Finishing projects
45:40 Setting a schedule for projects
48:30 Making things easy for your future self
49:30 Tools
53:25 Small workspaces
54:00 Future projects
58:40 Where to find Becky’s work
59:20 Wrap up
Thank you for supporting The Contextual Electronics Podcast! Here’s how you can follow and help us grow:
Please follow us on social media:
@ContextualElec on Twitter
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Contextual Electronics on LinkedIn
@Chris_Gammell on Twitter
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1h 1min
February 19, 2021CEP011 – Environmental Monitoring with Conservify
Welcome, Conservify!
Our guests today
Shah Selbe
Jacob Lewallen
Bradley Gawthrop
Show Notes
Conservify is creating the FieldKit, a new modular system for environmental monitoring for research scientists and citizen scientists.
FieldKit goes arboreal
Testing for wild hardware
Open source! Check out the hardware and firmware on Github
The hardware
FieldKit weather
Fieldkit enclosure
Upper / Lower / Modules
Solar and batteries
Winning The Hackaday Prize
Time tags:
0:00 Introduction
1:11 Conservify team introduction
6:20 Deploying electronics into harsh environments
10:35 Using off the shelf components
12:29 Monitoring water levels in the Amazon river basin
14:20 How did scientists measure things in the past?
20:23 Correlating data in the past
22:49 Open source in field science
23:22 FieldKit Hardware
28:11 Accomodating different hardware needs
31:30 Hardware details
34:20 Power requirements for the field
36:48 Unexpected customer requests
38:40 Community contributed hardware / firmware
44:50 Data visualization
48:10 FieldKit.org demo
52:35 Publishing without hardware
55:28 Who is using FieldKit?
57:25 Pilot program with NYC
58:30 Upcoming air quality kit
1:03:10 Giveaway of FieldKit stations
1:05:22 Focus on affordability
1:06:14 Deploying more non-profit FieldKits
1:07:32 Where to find more info
1:08:35 Hackaday Prize
1:09:32 Summary and wrap-up
Thank you for supporting The Contextual Electronics Podcast! Here’s how you can follow and help us grow:
Please follow us on social media:
@ContextualElec on Twitter
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1h 12min
January 13, 2021CEP010 – Low Volume and Low Cost with Timon Skerutsch
Welcome, Timon Skerutsch (@timonsku)!
Show notes
Timon and Chris know each other from Twitter and from past Hackaday events (Timon won one of the Hackaday Prize awards for his Linux Tablet)
Timon has been doing experiments with the recently released Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 (CM4)
This includes creating a carrier board using an Othermill circuit board router
This also led to the creation of the Piunora, a Rasberry Pi in the shape of an Arduino Uno.
Interested in getting a Piunora? Sign up here for the mailing list (general) and sign up here for the Crowdfunding campaign
His dayjob is working on a technical exhibitions, such as museum exhibits and trade fairs.
He is the only person there, so there are limited mentorship opportunities
He is mostly self taught
The low volume nature of technical exhibitions means Timon has had to reduce costs without volume
Bunnie Huang‘s book
Chris thought it was the Shenzhen Guide (it was not what Timon meant)
The Hardware Hacker: Adventures in making and breaking hardware
When finding a manufacturer, it’s important to build relationships
Reducing cost means that you might need to move outside “western” manufacturers
It’s easier to find alternative suppliers using sites like LCSC or Alibaba
Import costs can be high if manufacturing in China
The rough ABC Bill of Materials (BOM) discussed during this episode
The ABC Rev A Schematic is available on the course site now
“It’s often about finding the right keyword for the components you’re searching for”
Selling a “pro” and a “lite” version can offer the board at a lower price for people that don’t care about every feature.
Check out Timon’s youtube
Timon helps out with and participates on the Maker Cast, a monthly show that highlights different people on YouTube who make things and discuss them.
Thank you for supporting The Contextual Electronics Podcast! Here’s how you can follow and help us grow:
Please follow us on social media:
@ContextualElec on Twitter
Contextual Electronics on Facebook
Contextual Electronics on LinkedIn
@Chris_Gammell on Twitter
Please consider leaving us a review
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1h 12min
November 18, 2020CEP009 – Meta Learning Electronics with Mike Cheich and Phil FitzGerald
About the guests/host
Mike Cheich runs Programming Electronics academy. He has also been on Chris’s other podcast in the past.
Phil FitzGerald is an educational coach via The Compelling Message
Chris teaches at Contextual Electronics
Discussion topics
Teaching how to make a sandwich
Is the knowledge in reach and is it relevant?
Most people that are in Programming Electronics are hardware hobbyists who want to get into programming, usually through Arduino
It can be intimidating learning electronics because of the breadth of knowledge required
Phil-ism: Accreditation, certification, celebration.
Self evaluation matters at the beginning of education
SME = Subject Matter Expert
Analogy of creating a map within a city (mapping out London)
Selling people on the end point of a learning journey
Learners normally don’t care as much about the specifics of the journey
After the fact, learners will rose c0lor the specifics of how they got to the point they’re at
DITLO = Day in the life of
Chris struggles with how traditional education was teaching electronics
Mike likes finding the guiding principle within the electronics universe
Two tracks – thinking (theory) and doing (practice)
Designing your own 5 year map of curriculum
Phil-ism: You can’t show it if you don’t know it
Extending your knowledge of how maps work by being able to create a map in a new city
Creating lists of things to do, or not to do
Mike is learning how to 3D printing, which was a new learning journey
Facing failure and understanding what you should do when that happens
Drawing your map so you understand what you do and don’t know
Keeping notes is so you reinforce your own knowledge. In Phil’s example, this might take the form of a map. Phil explains in more detail in the video below:
The Dunning Kruger Effect
Make It Stick by Peter Brown
Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset
Removing barriers to learning when a learner experiences a problem (QR Code example)
Sleeping on a problem (or stepping away from a problem)
Accreditation is someone verifying you know what you claim to know
“What comes before that” is an important question when mapping out the steps required to learn something
Maps start as post-it notes
Creating analogies
Breaking down individual elements of the learning process and relating it back to that analogy
How do you quantify “show it to know it”?
Chris is a proponent of “Build Logs” (which is also a section on the CE Forum)
What do you notice in the thing you want to build?
Thinking about the steps that indicate you’re about to get to the next step? (ie. Which stop comes before the stop you’re going to get off at on the train)
Dewey Decimal System
Sometimes courses try to constrain the possible paths of research, as that can get overwhelming
The downside to learning in the modern day is how many sources of distraction there are (ie. phones)
Guided path examples
Implementation Patterns by Kent Beck
Learning something well enough to teach is holding yourself to a higher standard
Check out Phil’s site The Compelling Message and check out his book!
Mike teaches electronics on Programming Electronics Academy
Thank you for supporting The Contextual Electronics Podcast! Here’s how you can follow and help us grow:
Please follow us on social media:
@ContextualElec on Twitter
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1h 42min
November 04, 2020CEP008 – Building Rockets with Joe Barnard (Interview)
Joe Barnard is a rocketeer who runs BPS.space
Joe is helping to bring Thrust Vector Control to the field of model rocketry
He got started wanting to work for SpaceX, but has expanded the scope of things he’s interested in doing long term
The signal board is available for sale
Check out the evolution of control electronics that have gone on his rockets
The AVA Flight computer, recently released
Watch the “Launches” Playlist on the BPS.space YouTube channel (various were watched during the recording)
Watch the “Landings” playlist on the BPS.space YouTube channel (various were watched during the recording)…these were using the Thrust Vector Control
PID Control loops
Joe uses Simulink to test out different control characteristics
Kalman filters
Reaction wheel
Support Joe and BPS.space on Patreon!
Thank you for supporting The Contextual Electronics Podcast! Here’s how you can follow and help us grow:
Please follow us on social media:
@ContextualElec on Twitter
Contextual Electronics on Facebook
Contextual Electronics on LinkedIn
@Chris_Gammell on Twitter
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1h 14min
October 21, 2020CEP007 – Combining Art and Technology with Sarah Petkus
Sarah’s personal site (shown throughout the video)
She Bon is a project exploring human sexuality and helping people discuss it in a more healthy way. It has multiple smaller projects we discussed
HotSpot
PulsePack
Sarah shows the hardware to different groups. The hackers at DEFCON are different than the artists at Ars Electronica
Sarah entered the project into the Hackaday Prize and also gave a talk at the Hackaday Superconference about it.
Comparing artists and jackets, the former usually want to show completely finished work, instead of something that might be in progress. This means artist sometimes outsource the technical work. Sarah likes doing both.
“You learn the most when you do it all, when you have the control”
Howdo we get more art people to be technical? How do we get more crossover?
“I made this!”
Noodlefeet is Sarah’s robotic offspring. she has been creating an upgrading him for over 5 years.
The Noodlefeet playlist on Sarah’s Youtube channel
Rebuilding Noodle to make him more sturdy, especially while walking.
Ship of Theseus
The Noodle brain uses a Jetson Nano for classifying images. See the ‘mother of machine’ site for more info.
End Effectors
“The tasting channel”
Sarah got started in 3D using SketchUp, as did Chris. She learned parametric modeling via Fusion360 went on a deadline.
Sarah and Mark met at SynShop
Follow Sarah on YouTube
Sarah shares her regular sketches and thoughts on Twitter
Sarah also has a patreon
Thank you for supporting The Contextual Electronics Podcast! Here’s how you can follow and help us grow:
Please follow us on social media:
@ContextualElec on Twitter
Contextual Electronics on Facebook
Contextual Electronics on LinkedIn
@Chris_Gammell on Twitter
Please consider leaving us a review
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1h 13min
September 29, 2020CEP006 – Cellular Design Review with Roy Chen
Today we’re talking with Roy Chen from Quectel. He is a field applications engineer and has been helping people design cellular modules into their designs.
This is the PDF design review document that Quectel created
This is the powerpoint based PDF document that Quectel created
BG95
EG91
Quectel
The ABC course for Contextual Electronics
Contextual Electronics now has a free week signup for anyone who is interested in trying out the program! See the various options here.
Thank you for supporting The Contextual Electronics Podcast! Here’s how you can follow and help us grow:
Please follow us on social media:
@ContextualElec on Twitter
Contextual Electronics on Facebook
Contextual Electronics on LinkedIn
@Chris_Gammell on Twitter
Please consider leaving us a review
iTunes page for subscribing and reviewing
Video version of the podcast:
Audio version of the podcast:
...more
1h 4min

FAQs about The Contextual Electronics Podcast:

How many episodes does The Contextual Electronics Podcast have?

The podcast currently has 16 episodes available.

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