CB FI 410

Circuit Break Podcast #410

Eighth Annual MacroFab Star Wars Christmas Special Somehow this Podcast Returned

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December 26, 2023, Episode #410

Not unlike Han Solo emerging from cryosleep, the annual MacroFab Star Wars Christmas Special is back! Parker and Stephen welcome Josh Rozier, Chris Kraft, and Hyr0n to Circuit Break for a wide-ranging discussion covering at least the following about the Star Wars universe:

  • The Most Ingenious Pieces of Technology in Star Wars
  • The Most Underrated Characters
  • Favorite (and Most Profound) Star Wars Quotes
  • Personal picks for cool lightsaber functions
  • Do Star Wars ships and vehicles ever need gas?
  • Medical care in Star Wars vs. Star Trek
  • Whether or not you’re sleeping while encased in carbonite or just dead the whole time
  • A burning desire for vibroblades
  • The toilet paper situation in Star Wars
  • Does Star Wars really illuminate the vastness of space?
  • Chewbacca knows everything
  • Spider-Man’s goo
  • So many Star Wars magic tricks
  • Tow Cable/Power Harpoon as a reasonable tactic to use against the AT-ATs on Hoth?
  • Science-Fiction vs. Science-Fantasy
  • “Skippy” and The Mandalorian
  • FM Radio Transmissions in Caves
  • Star Wars: Thrawn and the curious case of loading cargo and other bureaucratic tasks
  • Engineering ethics in the Empire / Darth Vader and anger management
  • Stewie’s Vader
  • Kylo Ren, blasters, and magical gas
  • Not loving JJ Abrams’ elimination of limitations
    • much more!

About our guests:

Josh Rozier
A business intelligence and data analytics professional for a large, east-coast insurance monolith. In his spare time, Roz spends his time building and tweaking guitar amplifiers and pedals. Co-owner of Empire Engineering with Stephen.

Chris Kraft
A tinkerer currently working as a software engineer in the financial services industry. Extensive background in 3d printing and building anything that seems interesting.

Hyr0n
A systems engineer. Hardware hacker of AND!XOR, a group that builds electronic badges for conferences, mucks in vending machines, and designs embedded system puzzles.

Relevant links:

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.

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