[TriEmbed] Learning Curve

Burr Sutter burrsutter at gmail.com
Wed Apr 15 18:00:30 CDT 2015


The Embedded Software Engineering 101 could have a very large audience.  At
least one analyst firm is saying that there are less than 1 million
embedded engineers in the world today and we will soon need 3 million based
on the growth of microcontrollers being added to things.

On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 4:14 PM, Christopher Svec <christophersvec at yahoo.com
> wrote:

> There are two types of people in the world: those who think there are two
> types of people in the world, and those who don't. :-)
>
> I used "maker" vs "engineer" as if they were two mutually exclusive
> ecosystems, but really I think the "maker" vs "engineer" distinction is
> just two very fuzzy regions on a spectrum, with all sorts of different
> tradeoffs between them.
>
> I love the question of how to go from Arduino to "lower level" embedded
> stuff, without a stop at an engineering degree along the way.
>
> This free edX course covers some of the "engineering" side:
> https://www.edx.org/course/embedded-systems-shape-world-utaustinx-ut-6-02x
>
> But aside from that I don't know of any prepackaged resources. I hope
> other people do!
>
> I've considered putting together an "Embedded Software Engineering 101"
> type of class, but wasn't sure if there was any audience for such a thing.
>
> Thoughts?
>
>
>
>   On Wednesday, April 15, 2015 3:31 PM, Burr Sutter <burrsutter at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 9:35 AM, Christopher Svec <
> christophersvec at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Great! That leads to another question: which ecosystem?
>
> I would classify the products you've listed (Arduino, RaspPi, Spark, etc.)
> as mostly from what I call the "maker" ecosystem, meaning they're
> "batteries included" products useful in prototyping and product/experience
> exploration. And the products you've called out are definitely the top ones
> in that ecosystem.
> Another ecosystem is what I call the "engineering" ecosystem, meaning
> embedded products intended for high volume and high reliability products;
> it's anything you might want to manufacture and ship a bunch of (and not
> have them fail in the field).
>
>
> I have been asking about the "maker" vs "engineering" distinction in other
> forums.  Some folks believe there are two different universes, some think
> that one is merely an extension of the other, that there is a spectrum (not
> binary) of skills engineering/crafting for different needs/requirements.
>
>
>
> The "maker" and "engineering" ecosystems can both create a product that
> does the same thing, but cost, design time, scale, reliability, etc. will
> be quite different.
>
> Does that make sense?
>
> Totally
>
> I am interested in the "starting as a maker" and then "becoming a real
> engineer" journey.   I feel that one can learn a lot in the
> Arduino/RPi/Spark/Intel Edison world and then begin to learn ARM's
> mbed...then TI/FreeScale/SiliconLabs.  What are the stepping stones (for
> someone unwilling to go back to school for an electrical engineering
> degree)?
>
>
>
>
> (See? I love questions! :-) )
>
>
> Thank you very much for your responses! :-)
>
>
>
> -svec
>
> Chris Svec
> Senior Principal Software Engineer
> iRobot
>
>   On Wednesday, April 15, 2015 9:20 AM, Burr Sutter <burrsutter at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> I think that is a perfectly fair question...my focus is on learning at
> this time, trying to understand the overall ecosystem.
>
> On Wed, Apr 15, 2015 at 8:20 AM, Christopher Svec <
> christophersvec at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Yes! I totally agree about the growth of our once-very-niche industry.
>
> Another question to consider is "what are you trying to do or accomplish
> as an end-goal?", in addition to the "where to invest time & energy to
> learn" question.
>
> You can spend the rest of your life testing & learning each new platform
> or dev board or widget that comes out - and there's nothing wrong with that
> at all! Especially if pure learning is your goal.
>
> But is that what you're after?
>
> (I'm a fan of frequently backing up and asking the big picture "why?"
> questions.)
>
> -svec
>
>
>
>   On Wednesday, April 15, 2015 8:05 AM, Burr Sutter <burrsutter at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> The world of embedded microcontrollers has seen some dramatic growth (from
> my perspective) and it is tough to figure out where to invest my learning
> time & energy.
>
> I have followed this path so far:
> 1) Arduino
> 2) Raspberry Pi
> 3) Spark Core
> 4) Intel Edison (just using it as a Linux box so far)
> 5) TI SensorTag
> and played a bit with the NXP LPC1768 running mbed (http://mbed.org/)
>
> Mostly I have been simply playing with the various "developer kits" where
> my mission is on detection and connection - trying to understand what can
> be sensed and how to get the data back to the cloud.
>
> How do you all feel about mbed? Is that worthy of expending
> dozens/hundreds of hours of learning time? And if so, which of the various
> ARM/mbed-based hardware vendors are interesting to you?
>
>
>
>
>
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