Raspberry Pi Pico Lecture 39 (2025): Why I love microcontrollers

0:00 -A/V apology and introduction
0:40 – Goals for this lecture and this class
1:30 – It’s hard to explain why you love what you love
2:20 – I hope that this is a conversation
2:40 – Topics for today’s discussion
3:30 – Building things is engineering
4:20 – Why is a project portfolio a good idea?
6:00 – Avoiding the simulation trap
10:00 – Building things fills you with humility
12:20 – You should learn to solve problems with engineering. But there are other flavors of engineering.
15:45 – Why I’m telling you this
16:30 – Thinking of engineering as a skill like reading
20:35 – A diversity of interest does not indicate a lack of commitment to your area of specialty. It makes you better at your specialty.
23:55 – Historical evidence of the above point in da Vinci
26:30 – da Vinci’s diverse interests made him a better painter
28:00 – Some interesting snippets from da Vinci’s notebooks
31:15 – How these interests led to the Mona Lisa
36:35 – Claude Shannon’s diversity of interests made him a better engineer
38:00 – Engineering projects are filter removers. They let you hear the music.
40:00 – What makes embedded systems special?
40:20 – Embedded systems are vehicles to other fields and disciplines
41:00 – Constraints give you the opportunity to be creative
43:00 – Embedded systems offer the perfect amount of complexity
44:50 – You can safely be a novice in embedded systems
45:40 – Embedded systems perch perfectly on the boundary between the natural and computational worlds
46:50 – How do I figure out what to build?
47:40 – Thoughts with which to leave this class
49:00 – Thank you for such a good semester.

Spring, 2025 lectures from ECE 4760 (Digital Systems Design Using Microcontroller) at Cornell University.

Course site: https://ece4760.github.io
Hunter’s site: https://vanhunteradams.com