Embedded

Adam Smith from UC Santa Cruz joins us to discuss local Small Language Models (SLMs) and building open, autonomous tools. We explore his BayLeaf AI counterplatform, transagency (the "me-and-the-car" concept of human-agent collaboration), context distillation, and running models locally without relying on data-harvesting corporate clouds. 
Adam also shares practical strategies for working with coding agents, including why plain-text AGENTS.md files outperform model weight fine-tuning for long-term knowledge retention. He also describes how he uses open-source tools like OpenWebUI, OpenCode and OpenChamber to integrate small and local LLM integration into development environments and web chats. 
Discussion Resources & Links
Adam's Projects & Research:
BayLeaf AI Counterplatform: Hyper-local, open-source AI infrastructure built for UC Santa Cruz. See also the BayLeaf Getting Started Guide and BayLeaf Blog.

Adam Smith's UCSC Directory Page & Personal Website

Adam Smith on YouTube & GitHub (@rndmcnlly)

Open-Source Agent Harnesses & Wrappers:
OpenCode – Open-source command-line coding agent harness with VS Code integration (comparable to Claude Code)

OpenChamber – Graphical desktop wrapper for OpenCode with VS Code support (comparable to Claude Cowork)

OpenWeb UI – Self-hosted web interface and desktop app for local and remote LLM models

OpenRouter – Token broker/middleman routing requests across competitive LLM inference providers

r/LocalLlama – Community subreddit for local LLMs, open weights, and hardware advice

AGENTS.md Convention & Agent Skills Standard – Open standards for persistent context management

Context Distillation Paper (arXiv)

Adam's Guide to Building Transagent Capabilities:
Scope by Project Roots: Harnesses like OpenCode and OpenChamber use project root folders to establish clear, safe boundaries for agent execution.

Store Context in Plain Text: Keep global and project preferences in simple .md files (like AGENTS.md or GLOSSARY.md). Plain text files make your accumulated knowledge portable across different model front-ends and harnesses.

Handle Errors by Rewinding: When your LLM or agent makes a mistake, don't yell at it or try to correct it inline—go back in time to before the error and alter your prompt or context to lead it away from the mistake.

Refactor Preferences into Skills: As your AGENTS.md context grows, ask the agent to factor recurring preferences out into modular skill files (.agentskills).

Teach Transagency: Distinguish between standalone agent capabilities (autonomous work) and transagent capabilities (how the agent works with you).

Build Local Tools: Ask the agent to build desktop helpers (QuickLook triggers, push notifications, or fuzzy glossary lookup) to keep a shared orientation.

Elecia: "Complete one project or start a dozen?"
Adam: "Tens of thousands, and start hundreds more within the starting of the other projects recursively forever."
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Aaed Musa joins us to talk about building robot dogs, custom actuators, and his YouTube channel. He shares how he moved from 3D-printing servo robots in his parents' garage to designing capstan drives, and how he uses reinforcement learning to train quadrupedal walking gaits. We also talk about his senior design project (CARA 2.0), his Spider-Man web-shooter build, lessons in storytelling and video editing, and why he's starting a company to bring friendly, expressive quadrupeds into the home. 
Aaed Musa is a mechanical engineering graduate from Purdue University, a hardware creator on YouTube, and co-founder of the robotics startup Mecha. 
DISCUSSION RESOURCES & LINKS
AAED'S CHANNELS & PROJECTS:
Aaed Musa on YouTube: Project videos covering quadrupedal robot dogs, Spider-Man web shooters, and custom actuators. Oh, and planetary gears.

More detailed project write ups are under projects on his personal site, including CARA 2.0.

Github repository

Robots Everywhere with Aaed Musa | The Amp Hour

ROBOTICS & ACTUATOR TECH:
Dyneema DM20: synthetic rope with zero creep used in zero-backlash capstan drives

NVIDIA Isaac Sim: simulation and reinforcement learning environment for robotics

OpenMV: Very smart MicroPython-powered machine vision modules. Kwabena Agyeman has spoken with us about OpenMV before:

497: Everyone Likes Tiny 

477: One Thousand New Instructions

212: You Are in Seaworld

SOME YOUTUBE CHANNELS MENTIONED:
Good 3d printing youtube channels:

3DPrintingNerd 

CNCKitchen 

MadeWithLayers 

Jeremy_Fielding: great for explaining how things work and coming at engineering from a non engineering direction (Embedded 385: I Just Wanted an Industrial Arm)

James Bruton: Robot dogs! 

Mark Rober has fantastic storytelling and approachable engineering.

Stuff Made Here has robots and gadgets, generally a broad scope of engineering.

Author Susan Lammers joins the show to discuss the 40th anniversary edition of her classic book, Programmers at Work. We discuss what it was like to interview young and pioneering software developers like Toru Iwatani, C. Wayne Ratliff, and Michael Hawley and how the personal computer revolution was built by individuals seeking freedom from corporate mainframes. 
Susan also shares her experiences as Editor-in-Chief at Microsoft Press, leading Microsoft's early interactive CD-ROM division, founding Headbone Interactive in the 1990s, and why she's bringing retro games like Elroy Goes Bugzerk back to Steam today. 
SUSAN'S BOOK & WEB RESOURCES:
Programmers at Work: 40th Anniversary Edition – Official site featuring updated bios, excerpts, and current career paths of the 19 interviewees

Programmers at Work on Amazon or on Simon & Schuster website

Overview and list of interviewees on Wikipedia

HEADBONE INTERACTIVE & RETRO GAMING:
HeadboneInteractive.com

Headbone Interactive - Wikipedia 

Elroy Goes Bugzerk on Steam – The classic 1990s interactive cartoon adventure game brought back for modern platforms

SOFTWARE & HISTORICAL MENTIONS:
VisiCalc on Wikipedia (The first computer spreadsheet)

Ukatsuke Komachi (The automated receptionist robot at Namco in 1985)

The Paris Review interview series (The literary inspiration behind Programmers at Work)

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Kevin Santo Cappuccio, founder of Architeuthis Flux, joins the show to discuss creating Jumperless, an open-source breadboard that replaces physical jumper wires with software-controlled analog crossbar switches. We explore the need for 445 RGB LEDs on a breadboard, using MicroPython to create scriptable circuits, some of the lessons that can be implemented with the Jumperless, and how it might be used to create new instruments. Kevin also shares the story behind his upcoming Barnacle Board.
DISCUSSION RESOURCES & LINKS
Jumperless Project & Hardware Resources:
Jumperless Docs and Discord

Jumperless Shop (Also available via CrowdSupply but any discounts only apply to Kevin's shop)

JumperlessV5 · GitHub: Open-source hardware files, schematics, and firmware

Barnacle Board - GitHub:  The future of jumperless includes a modular breadboard with custom-stamped clips and removable protoboard tops

Other Resources and Mentions:
Wokwi Simulator: Online browser-based electronic circuit simulator 

Falstad Circuit Simulator: Kevin's favorite browser-based analog simulator

Hackaday Prize 2023: Jumperless took 2nd place in the 2023 contest. 

Peter Griffin made an Microsoft Excel plugin interface for Jumperless, we discussed it with him in episode 505: Potato in a Number Field. 

Kevin also talked with Chris Gammell of The Amp Hour with more information about the electrical response, timing, and the crossbars.

Giant squid - Wikipedia

Elecia and Christopher celebrate winning the IEEE Educational Activities Board Meritorious Achievement Award in Outreach and Informal Education! A huge thank you to Mark Omo and the wonderful listeners who submitted nomination letters. Chris and Elecia talk about learning Hungarian to qualify Chris for an EU passport. They also cover Cory Doctorow's new book The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI, smart ways to hand off codebases, and the most valuable skills they've relied on through their engineering careers.
DISCUSSION RESOURCES & LINKS
AWARDS & MILESTONES:
IEEE Educational Activities Board Meritorious Achievement Award in Outreach and Informal Education

"For creating and sustaining Embedded.fm, a long-running technical engineering podcast that bridges academic theory and industry practice, champions underrepresented groups in STEM, addresses professional ethics, and provides informal technical mentorship to a global audience."
Huge thanks to Mark Omo for submitting the nomination and to the other nominators for advocating for our work.
To the 450+ guests—artists, makers, educators, entrepreneurs, and traditional engineers—who have generously shared their time and deep expertise with us: this award belongs to you too.
And to our incredible global listener community: thank you for tuning in, sharing episodes with your colleagues, and keeping the STEM pipeline strong.
If Embedded.fm has ever helped you solve a tricky bug, navigate a career transition, or stay inspired in hardware/software design, we'd love for you to celebrate with us by sharing your favorite episode with an early-career engineer or student this week!
Embedded episode 501: Inside the Armpit of a Giraffe, an interview with biologist Meredith Palmer and engineer Akiba, won a Communicator Award for an Individual Episodes-Science & Technology, Distinction 2026.

BOOKS & READING LIST:
The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI by Cory Doctorow

Programmers at Work: Interviews With 19 Developers Who Shaped the Computer Industry by Susan Lammers (1986)

Embedded AI: Intelligence at the Deep End by David Such (No Starch Press, Early Access)

TECHNICAL & LANGUAGE MENTIONS:
The Hungarian phrase "Boldog vagyok" ("I am happy"). Elecia's Duolingo page

Zephyr RTOS and embedding Rust libraries into Zephyr environments

Memfault observability, CSV data extractions, and battery performance analytics

AI models escaping sandboxes (The OpenAI and Anthropic benchmark incidents)

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