engineering

NI Week 2014 Day 3

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Get ready for NI Week 2014 in Austin Tx

More new hardware was introduced including a small Real-Time/FPGA target called the NI System on Module. () The NI System on Module (SOM) combines the Xilinx Zynq FPGA, common components like memory, and a complete middleware solution, delivering a complete embedded platform that minimizes design time and risk for any embedded control or monitoring application. The NI SOM also ships with NI Linux Real-Time, which combines the performance of a real-time operating system with the openness of Linux. Along with a vast community, Linux allows the freedom to choose how you program the processor, using either LabVIEW system design software or C/C++ with Eclipse.

NIWeek 2014 Day 2

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Get ready for NI Week 2014 in Austin Tx

The technical sessions seemed to highlight the NI Systems Engineering Group this year. The NI systems Engineering group is responsible for creating frameworks, reference designs and add-on LabVIEW toolkits. These packages are originally created for use within NI but are made available to outside developers as well.

The Eruption of Disruption

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At the AEM Annual Conference last year, Peter Diamandis, CEO of XPRIZE, made a bold prediction to those of us in the audience. He predicted that a decade from now 40% of today’s Fortune 500 companies will be put out of business by disruptive technologies. Although that probably sounds extreme to many of us, I’m sure that former employees at Kodak, Blockbuster, and Borders are less blown away the prediction.

Wanted: A new corn-growing catch phrase

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Young corn soaks up the sun.

The “Knee-high by the fourth of July” phrase needs to go. It is long overdue for a new phrase because this one has not been a good measuring stick for corn for decades. The only grass (corn is a grass, for those who did not learn that tidbit of info as a farm kid) that should be knee-high on the fourth of July is the grass on the edges of my yard when I do not get out the string-trimmer. These days, waist high is probably the minimum acceptable height for most areas of the country,

Riding the LIN Bus

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The LIN bus is a low cost alternative to CAN

Recently, we were asked to work on a customer project involving LIN(Local Interconnect Network) communication. Our team has have quite a bit of experience working with CAN (Controller Area Network)systems, so it was interesting to learn the intricacies of LIN as a lower cost alternative to CAN.

What’s it like to sell Engineers

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This is the first in a series of posts by the folks that keep this place on track as a business – giving a non-engineer perspective on the culture of engineering.

Selling helium would be easier, but not as much fun as selling engineering services

Lost In Translation-The Bill Murray movie-That’s working with engineers.

I’ve come to the conclusion that my career has been headed down the wrong path for a long time. I know sales people who sell commodities, specialty products, medical devices, and they all tell me the same thing: It was easy once I learned my product. Well to heck with you guys, my product has no owner’s manual, has vacation days, and such a range of skills that I can’t simply say “That’s on page 38 of your product manual ma’am.”

ISOBUS Plugfest 2014 – What we saw

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ISOBUS Schematic

The 2014 Spring Plugfest in Lincoln just wrapped up last week. I did not see the final numbers, but would guess there were 180-210 total attendees and participants. The Plugfest had 16 VT stations and 13 TC stations, plus each participant went to the AEF Database station and the AEF Conformance Test station. A total of 34 different implement ECUs were being tested: 24 were testing a TC client while the others were only testing the VT client. DISTek had 2 of these ECUs for testing our VIRTEC VT-Client and TC-Client sample applications. The Plugfest also had 4 FMIS systems available and a few TECUs. In addition to these ISOBUS components formally listed at Plugfest, we also saw at least 3 File Servers active on CAN buses and a variety of Aux Inputs located at many stations.

Book Report: You Don’t Need a Title to be a Leader by Mark Sanborn

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Photo: © Judex | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

Before reading this book, I had the belief that everyone can be a leader and that in every role within an organization, leadership skills can be demonstrated and can add value. When I first saw this book title, I was intrigued if the book would substantiate my belief. It did and more.

What is leadership? Mark Sanborn states leadership is influence. He lists six principles of leadership, which are:

Advantages of Using an Agile Development Process for Embedded Software

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desk

According to Wikipedia, Agile software development is “a group of software development methods based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams.” While there can be some variability among Agile organizations, there are a few important definitions which generally hold true. A Potentially Shippable Increment (PSI) is a 2 month period of time in which the team will commit to delivering a set of features to a customer.

Attending EE Live! In San Jose, California

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The EE Live! Conference is on

Upon arrival in San Jose I headed down to baggage claim to retrieve my suitcase that I was forced to check due to just being on a completely full plane. I then headed outside and was struck with what felt like a heat wave after being in the Midwest for one of our coldest winters. Granted it was only around 60°F, but when I left North Dakota it was around 35°F.

Attending EE Live! in San Jose allowed me to attend numerous sessions and learn about many different technologies and ideas…

Day one of the 2014 EELive! Conference

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The EE Live! Conference is on

EELive!, formerly known as DESIGN West, is an annual week-long engineering industry event which includes the embedded systems conference, training sessions, boot camps, postmortems, and a large expo featuring exhibits from vendors across the industry.

CONEXPO – CONAGG 2014

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What is it like to come to the CONEXPO show for the first time? Well, it would be easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer size of the show and the distractions of Las Vegas. It is manageable by taking some time to put together a plan and to build a set of priorities for what you want to see.

The Caterpillar Display at CONEXPO. Photo: Gary Honey

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