Podcasts are a great way of keeping up to date with what is happening in the fields of electronics and embedded systems. They also offer the opportunity to learn from the experiences of others in the wider technical community.
There are three podcasts that I listen to regularly. All three podcasts are well produced and frequently release new episodes. Each podcast has a slightly different focus – based mainly on the background of the hosts.
The Amp Hour
The Amp Hour is co-hosted by Dave Jones (EEVBlog) and Chris Gammell (Contextual Electronics). New episodes are released weekly.
Dave is based in Sydney, Australia and Chris is based in Chicago, USA. Despite having hosted well over 300 episodes together, the two only met in person quite recently when Chris dropped in on Dave down under!
Both Dave and Chris are hardware engineers. Naturally then, some of the most informative episodes have been hardware related.
Dave and Chris regularly interview guests on The Amp Hour. The two co-hosts have different but complementary interview styles, and this generally works quite well.
The guest list is enviable. As the podcast has a technical rather than business focus, the interviews with startup founders, CTOs, etc. are usually more engaging and open than one might expect.
Twitter:
The Amp Hour
Dave Jones
Chris Gammell
My Favourite Episodes:
#77 – An Interview with Dr. Howard Johnson – Winsome Waveform Wizardry
#196 – An Interview with Mike Engelhardt – SPICE Simulator Synteresis
Embedded.fm
As the name suggests, Embedded.fm is a podcast with a focus on Embedded Systems. Elecia White and Christopher White co-host the podcast and release a new episode on a weekly basis.
This podcast tends to have more of a focus (and expertise) on embedded software and algorithms than The Amp Hour. The two podcasts complement each other very well. Occasionally, the two shows hold crossover episodes.
Elecia and Christopher have a light-hearted and jovial interview style, but both can get right to the heart of the most technical matters in a very accessible manner. My ears perk right up any time a Kalman Filter is mentioned!
Elecia and Christopher run Logical Elegance – a California based consulting company.
Elecia is also the author of Making Embedded Systems: Design Patterns for Great Software.
Twitter:
Embedded.fm
Elecia White
Christopher White
My Favourite Episodes:
9: Kidnapped and blindfolded
53: Being a Grownup Engineer (with Jack Ganssle)
The Engineering Commons
The Engineering Commons tends to have a broader focus than either The Amp Hour or Embedded.fm podcasts. With multiple co-hosts and a focus on all aspects of engineering, conversations with multiple perspectives tend to evolve over the course of each show.
Episodes are released less frequently than that the other two podcasts – perhaps once or twice a month on average.
The broad range of topics covered on The Engineering Commons makes this podcast of great interest to anybody wishing to become a well-rounded professional engineer.