Aaed Musa joins us to talk about building robot dogs, custom actuators, and his YouTube channel. He shares how he moved from 3D-printing servo robots in his parents' garage to designing capstan drives, and how he uses reinforcement learning to train quadrupedal walking gaits. We also talk about his senior design project (CARA 2.0), his Spider-Man web-shooter build, lessons in storytelling and video editing, and why he's starting a company to bring friendly, expressive quadrupeds into the home.

Aaed Musa is a mechanical engineering graduate from Purdue University, a hardware creator on YouTube, and co-founder of the robotics startup Mecha.

• Aaed Musa on YouTube: Project videos covering quadrupedal robot dogs, Spider-Man web shooters, and custom actuators. Oh, and planetary gears.

• More detailed project write ups are under projects on his personal site, including CARA 2.0.

• Github repository

• Robots Everywhere with Aaed Musa | The Amp Hour

• Dyneema DM20: synthetic rope with zero creep used in zero-backlash capstan drives

• NVIDIA Isaac Sim: simulation and reinforcement learning environment for robotics

• OpenMV: Very smart MicroPython-powered machine vision modules. Kwabena Agyeman has spoken with us about OpenMV before:

• • 497: Everyone Likes Tiny

  • 477: One Thousand New Instructions

  • 212: You Are in Seaworld

• Good 3d printing youtube channels:

• • 3DPrintingNerd

  • CNCKitchen

  • MadeWithLayers

• Jeremy_Fielding: great for explaining how things work and coming at engineering from a non engineering direction (Embedded 385: I Just Wanted an Industrial Arm)

• James Bruton: Robot dogs!

• Mark Rober has fantastic storytelling and approachable engineering.

• Stuff Made Here has robots and gadgets, generally a broad scope of engineering.

Author Susan Lammers joins the show to discuss the 40th anniversary edition of her classic book, Programmers at Work. We discuss what it was like to interview young and pioneering software developers like Toru Iwatani, C. Wayne Ratliff, and Michael Hawley and how the personal computer revolution was built by individuals seeking freedom from corporate mainframes.

Susan also shares her experiences as Editor-in-Chief at Microsoft Press, leading Microsoft's early interactive CD-ROM division, founding Headbone Interactive in the 1990s, and why she's bringing retro games like Elroy Goes Bugzerk back to Steam today.

• Programmers at Work: 40th Anniversary Edition – Official site featuring updated bios, excerpts, and current career paths of the 19 interviewees

• Programmers at Work on Amazon or on Simon & Schuster website

• Overview and list of interviewees on Wikipedia

• HeadboneInteractive.com

• Headbone Interactive - Wikipedia

• Elroy Goes Bugzerk on Steam – The classic 1990s interactive cartoon adventure game brought back for modern platforms

• VisiCalc on Wikipedia (The first computer spreadsheet)

• Ukatsuke Komachi (The automated receptionist robot at Namco in 1985)

• The Paris Review interview series (The literary inspiration behind Programmers at Work)

Transcript

Kevin Santo Cappuccio, founder of Architeuthis Flux, joins the show to discuss creating Jumperless, an open-source breadboard that replaces physical jumper wires with software-controlled analog crossbar switches. We explore the need for 445 RGB LEDs on a breadboard, using MicroPython to create scriptable circuits, some of the lessons that can be implemented with the Jumperless, and how it might be used to create new instruments. Kevin also shares the story behind his upcoming Barnacle Board.

Jumperless Project & Hardware Resources:

• Jumperless Docs and Discord

• Jumperless Shop (Also available via CrowdSupply but any discounts only apply to Kevin's shop)

• JumperlessV5 · GitHub: Open-source hardware files, schematics, and firmware

• Barnacle Board - GitHub: The future of jumperless includes a modular breadboard with custom-stamped clips and removable protoboard tops

Other Resources and Mentions:

• Wokwi Simulator: Online browser-based electronic circuit simulator

• Falstad Circuit Simulator: Kevin's favorite browser-based analog simulator

• Hackaday Prize 2023: Jumperless took 2nd place in the 2023 contest.

• Peter Griffin made an Microsoft Excel plugin interface for Jumperless, we discussed it with him in episode 505: Potato in a Number Field.

• Kevin also talked with Chris Gammell of The Amp Hour with more information about the electrical response, timing, and the crossbars.

• Giant squid - Wikipedia