Contextual Electronics highlights stories of people using electronics to solve their problems. Listeners will hear how to use electronics in their own projects, by learning about new technologies and techniques. Tune in each week to hear a different guest and how they are using electronics to solve a problem in their life.
Contextual Electronics is also an online education program. Started in 2014, CE pairs theory and practice for learning electronics. In 2020, we started the podcast to highlight stories of using electronics in real world contexts.
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Contextual Electronics highlights stories of people using electronics to solve their problems. Listeners will hear how to use electronics in their own projects, by learning about new technologies and techniques. Tune in each week to hear a different guest and how they are using electronics to solve a problem in their life.
Contextual Electronics is also an online education program. Started in 2014, CE pairs theory and practice for learning electronics. In 2020, we started the podcast to highlight stories of using electronics in real world contexts.
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.
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
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Kat Scott of Open Robotics 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 also a member of OSHWA, which defines and certifies Open Source Hardware.
Becky Stern mixes electronics, crafts, and practical applications to create interesting products and projects. She talks with Chris about her library of work and how to get started pairing electronics with something other than plastic boxes.
Conservify is creating the FieldKit, a new modular system for environmental monitoring for research scientists and citizen scientists. The engineering team joins Chris to talk about deploying measurement systems into harsh environments and how to make things that last.
Timon (@timonsku) joins Chris to talk about his experience creating low volume products at low cost (two things not normally associated). His experience building technical exhibitions, and more recently CM4 boards, gives him the experience to offer Chris some suggestions on reducing the cost of the ABC board.
In this episode, Mike Cheich (Programming Electronics) and Phil FitzGerald (The Compelling Message) talk with Chris about how to learn and teach electronics. This discussion also covers how to construct your own electronics learning journey, so you can get to your destination faster and learn how to create the custom electronics you'd like to build.
Joe Barnard joins Chris to talk about building scale model rockets and using thrust vector control to try and land those rockets like SpaceX does. This is an ongoing rocketry and video experiment you can follow and watch on BPS.Space!
Roy Chen, Field Application Engineer (FAE) for Quectel, joins Chris to talk about the cellular module design on the ABC board (part of Contextual Electronics). This acts as an insight into the relationship between engineers and FAEs.
Contextual Electronics highlights stories of people using electronics to solve their problems. Listeners will hear how to use electronics in their own projects, by learning about new technologies and techniques. Tune in each week to hear a different guest and how they are using electronics to solve a problem in their life.
Contextual Electronics is also an online education program. Started in 2014, CE pairs theory and practice for learning electronics. In 2020, we started the podcast to highlight stories of using electronics in real world contexts.
