[TriEmbed] Learning Curve

Fri Apr 17 11:09:21 CDT 2015

Keep in mind that there are many MANY interested folks that are not on this list.-Pete

----- Reply message -----
From: "Jon Wolfe" <jonjwolfe at anibit.com>
To: <triembed at triembed.org>
Subject: [TriEmbed] Learning Curve
Date: Fri, Apr 17, 2015 11:20 AM

This is the kind of thing I would *really* love to expand my business to. In fact, it's sort of part of my mission statement. I've been trying for the past year to turn my passion/hobby into my profession, and I kicked it off by becoming a parts distributor. I've mentioned to some how reselling has been a little less than rewarding. It's not that I don't like doing it, I do. However, after recently doing my taxes, it's apparent that reselling is not going to be any sort of business stepping stone to bigger and better things. I was so close to breaking even that my entire profit for last year was less than what I make in one day as a consultant. And that's on top of the fact that I can't match the prices of most of the big-time hobby electronics site.
One thing that I have had a desire to do is be part of education in the Hobby Electronics and embedded development space. A lot of the original ideas I've been cooking up center around that theme. That is why I made the Graphical Robot Programming Tool. I think there several "tiers" that exist for education and training programs. The graphical programmer is aimed at kids and non-technical adults, but I think there is another area that seems underserved, and it of particular interest to me that that is the group of the kind of people who might be inclined to check out Triembed for the first time. It's people who might have a little electronics or programming knowledge and want to go to the "next level". For the Arduino example, it's a great tools for absolute beginners, but as your AVR and C++ programming skills grow, it starts to become an obstacle to doing more advanced software design and development. 
I'd absolutely be interested in putting together some sort of program for people who want to learn embedded C/C++ and are ready or almost ready to move past the Arduino. 
How much interest is there among this mailing list for something like a several session class in AVR and/or Arduino programming(this would be a separate distinct thing from Triembed)? Would it be something you'd be willing to take a paid class in? If not that topic, is there an interest in something else? My specialties lie in embedded and desktop/mobile software development and digital electronics.
I've put together a survey here, if anyone is interested in giving me feedback on interest in classes.
Thanks,

Jon

On 2015-04-15 22:36, John Rock wrote:

I'd sign up for Embedded Software Engineering 101. 

I find the TriEmbed meetings great, but a bit over my head (at least at this point in my journey). 

John Rock 

From: TriEmbed [mailto:triembed-bounces at triembed.org] On Behalf Of Christopher SvecSent: Wednesday, April 15, 2015 16:15To: burrsutter at gmail.comCc: triembed at triembed.orgSubject: Re: [TriEmbed] Learning Curve 

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? 

_______________________________________________Triangle, NC Embedded Computing mailing listTriEmbed at triembed.orghttp://mail.triembed.org/mailman/listinfo/triembed_triembed.orgTriEmbed web site: http://TriEmbed.org 

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-- 
Jon Wolfe
Anibit Technology LLC.

https://anibit.com
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