Circuit Break Podcast #81

Eddie Samuels and Comma.ai

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August 18, 2017, Episode #81

Guest Eddie Samuels joins Parker and Stephen to talk about Comma AI and low noise regulators.
  • Eddie Samuels from Comma.ai
    • Been soldering and dremeling since the 7th grade
    • The first thing he built was a simple 7805 mp3 battery charger, guided by one of the original hackaday.com projects
    • Went on to get his EE degree at the University of Rochester and work for a year in the defense industry before moving to San Francisco to work at comma.ai
    • Underwater Rover Project
      • Project while in college
      • Sealing the unit was the hardest part
      • Moisture sensor built with strips of aluminum tape
    • EV Jetta
  • Comma.ai
    • Open-source self-driving cars
    • Panda – the nicest universal car interface ever
      • ARM M4 – STM32F413
      • ESP8266 WiFi
      • Transceivers for CAN BUS, LIN BUS, and GM LAN
      • Can listen without the car modules knowing
      • Can interface with OpenPilot to develop a self-driving car
      • Github Link
    • Car bounties
      • Earn $5 to $10k by porting the code to other vehicles
    • Cabana – Demo
    • Order a Panda! Then use it with cabana!
  • Stephens Game – How would you get a ball out of a tube?
    • Eddie – use a laser cutter
    • Stephen – potato cannon, making his own gun powder
    • Parker – squeezes the tube like toothpaste

Listen to Ep #65 to hear more about self-driving cars and the technology behind them.

Figure 1: Eddie Samuels

Figure 1: Eddie Samuels

Figure 2: Comma.ai Hardware Lab

Figure 2: Comma.ai Hardware Lab

Figure 3: Panda ODB plug in module

Figure 3: Panda ODB plug in module

About the Hosts

Parker Dillmann
  Parker Dillmann

Parker is an Electrical Engineer with backgrounds in Embedded System Design and Digital Signal Processing. He got his start in 2005 by hacking Nintendo consoles into portable gaming units. The following year he designed and produced an Atari 2600 video mod to allow the Atari to display a crisp, RF fuzz free picture on newer TVs. Over a thousand Atari video mods where produced by Parker from 2006 to 2011 and the mod is still made by other enthusiasts in the Atari community.

In 2006, Parker enrolled at The University of Texas at Austin as a Petroleum Engineer. After realizing electronics was his passion he switched majors in 2007 to Electrical and Computer Engineering. Following his previous background in making the Atari 2600 video mod, Parker decided to take more board layout classes and circuit design classes. Other areas of study include robotics, microcontroller theory and design, FPGA development with VHDL and Verilog, and image and signal processing with DSPs. In 2010, Parker won a Ti sponsored Launchpad programming and design contest that was held by the IEEE CS chapter at the University. Parker graduated with a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering in the Spring of 2012.

In the Summer of 2012, Parker was hired on as an Electrical Engineer at Dynamic Perception to design and prototype new electronic products. Here, Parker learned about full product development cycles and honed his board layout skills. Seeing the difficulties in managing operations and FCC/CE compliance testing, Parker thought there had to be a better way for small electronic companies to get their product out in customer's hands.

Parker also runs the blog, longhornengineer.com, where he posts his personal projects, technical guides, and appnotes about board layout design and components.

Stephen Kraig
  Stephen Kraig

Stephen Kraig is a component engineer working in the aerospace industry. He has applied his electrical engineering knowledge in a variety of contexts previously, including oil and gas, contract manufacturing, audio electronic repair, and synthesizer design. A graduate of Texas A&M, Stephen has lived his adult life in the Houston, TX, and Denver, CO, areas.

Stephen has never said no to a project. From building guitar amps (starting when he was 17) to designing and building his own CNC table to fine-tuning the mineral composition of the water he uses to brew beer, he thrives on testing, experimentation, and problem-solving. Tune into the podcast to learn more about the wacky stuff Stephen gets up to.

Special thanks to whixr over at Tymkrs for the intro and outro!

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