NEW · INTERACTIVE BOOK

Notes from the edge of silicon

Essays, experiments, and teaching materials from a decade of wiring software to hardware.

Explore the Interactive Book $ latest article →
By Prof. Derek Molloy DCU Dublin City University
src/sample.c
CH1 · SAMPLE LOOP 



    

  






  

    

      

        
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    Giving Claude Code a Logic Analyser: A Minimal Bench Harness for Zephyr on the nRF52840
    AI
    FEATURED
  

  

    
Giving Claude Code a Logic Analyser: A Minimal Bench Harness for Zephyr on the nRF52840

    
An AI coding agent can write, build and flash firmware, but it cannot see the LED. This article builds a small Claude Code harness for Zephyr on the nRF52840 DK that closes the loop with real measurements from an Analog Discovery, and shows what it caught that reading the code never would.

    

      Derek Molloy
      ·
      Oct 26, 2026
      ·
      45 min read
    

  


          

              
    

      The OpenMV AE3: A Time-of-Flight Doorman for the NPU
      OpenMV
    

  

    
The OpenMV AE3: A Time-of-Flight Doorman for the NPU

    
Part two of the OpenMV series shrinks the board and the power to a quarter of a watt, while running YOLO. Built on Alif's Ensemble E3 with two Cortex-M55s and two Ethos-U55 NPUs, the AE3 also carries something its bigger sibling does not, a VL53L8CX 8x8 ToF depth sensor.

    

        Derek Molloy
        Derek Molloy
      ·
      Jul 26, 2026
      ·
      42 min read
    

  


              
    

      The OpenMV N6: A MicroPython Camera with a Real NPU
      OpenMV
    

  

    
The OpenMV N6: A MicroPython Camera with a Real NPU

    
The OpenMV N6 pairs an 800 MHz Cortex-M55 with ST's 600-GOPS Neural-ART NPU and a removable global-shutter camera, and MicroPython - YOLO object detection at 30 fps, in Python, under a watt. We tour the hardware properly, walk through setup, and build a people-counting application on the NPU.

    

        Derek Molloy
        Derek Molloy
      ·
      Jul 24, 2026
      ·
      25 min read
    

  


          

        

  






  





  

    

      

        
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      PID on a Microcontroller: Making Timing Visible in a 3D Game
      AI
    

  

    
PID on a Microcontroller: Making Timing Visible in a 3D Game

    
A follow-on to PID Flight School. The drone's roll loop runs on a simulated Cortex-M under Zephyr, so students can see what loop rate, fixed-point maths, sensor resolution and thread priorities do to a controller.

    

        Derek Molloy
        Derek Molloy
      ·
      Oct 27, 2026
      ·
      2 min read
    

  


          
    

      PID Flight School, Studio Edition: One Lesson, Two Looks
      AI
    

  

    
PID Flight School, Studio Edition: One Lesson, Two Looks

    
The second visual style of my PID Flight School game. Once the lesson is fixed in code, changing how it looks is cheap, but a more ambitious look has costs that you need to test for.

    

        Derek Molloy
        Derek Molloy
      ·
      Oct 25, 2026
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      2 min read
    

  


          
    

      PID Flight School: Teaching a Control Loop as a 3D Game
      AI
    

  

    
PID Flight School: Teaching a Control Loop as a 3D Game

    
I turned the PID demonstration from my Connected Embedded book into an eight-mission 3D game with Claude Code. This short post is about what that means for teaching.

    

        Derek Molloy
        Derek Molloy
      ·
      Oct 25, 2026
      ·
      3 min read
    

  


          
    

      MECE Module Selection
      Beginners
    

  

    
MECE Module Selection

    
An interactive selection tool for students beginning MECE in September 2026

    

        Derek Molloy
        Derek Molloy
      ·
      Sep 01, 2026
      ·
      5 min read
    

  


          
    

      MCTY Module Selection
      Beginners
    

  

    
MCTY Module Selection

    
An interactive selection tool for students beginning MCTY in September 2026

    

        Derek Molloy
        Derek Molloy
      ·
      Sep 01, 2026
      ·
      4 min read
    

  


          
    

      Zephyr from Zero on the ST Nucleo-F401RE: Watching the Scheduler Work
      Zephyr
    

  

    
Zephyr from Zero on the ST Nucleo-F401RE: Watching the Scheduler Work

    
A complete beginner's path onto the Zephyr RTOS using the low-cost ST Nucleo-F401RE, from installing the toolchain to a four-thread demo whose scheduling you can watch on a logic analyser.

    

        Derek Molloy
        Derek Molloy
      ·
      Aug 31, 2026
      ·
      62 min read
    

  


          
    

      A Radar Scope on the Arduino UNO Q: Multi-Target Tracking with the Ai-Thinker RD-03D mmWave Sensor
      Arduino
    

  

    
A Radar Scope on the Arduino UNO Q: Multi-Target Tracking with the Ai-Thinker RD-03D mmWave Sensor

    
UNO Q with a 24 GHz radar wired to the board to build a live radar scope - the MCU turns a binary sensor stream into three tracked targets, and the Linux side draws them sweeping across a web dashboard. Along the way, a proper look at how FMCW radar works, all showing the strength of mmWave radar.

    

        Derek Molloy
        Derek Molloy
      ·
      Aug 10, 2026
      ·
      73 min read
    

  


          
    

      The Zephyr Devicetree: An Interactive Demo
      Zephyr
    

  

    
The Zephyr Devicetree: An Interactive Demo

    
A gentle, but complete introduction to the Zephyr devicetree, taught through the one thing every beginner gets wrong - which way round an LED is wired. Built from nothing on a low-cost Seeed XIAO nRF52840, with three onboard LEDs, one external LED wired deliberately backwards, and a button.

    

        Derek Molloy
        Derek Molloy
      ·
      Aug 07, 2026
      ·
      69 min read
    

  


    

  






  

    

      

        
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    Edge Programming with C/C++ and Rust cover
  

  
Edge Programming with C/C++ and Rust

  
STARLIGHT · ONGOING · 2026

  
A live, interactive textbook. Runnable code blocks, guided terminal sessions, schematic marginalia — the lab, in a browser.

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Derek Molloy's textbooks, Exploring BeagleBone and Exploring Raspberry Pi, are originally written and published in English. Because they are widely used as core engineering texts in universities around the world, they have also been officially translated into several languages.

      

        
        
        
        
        
      

    

  






  

    

      

        
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The evolution of connectivity: from IoT to AIoT

        
Everyday objects, machines, and whole cities are no longer just connected — they collaborate, learn, and make decisions. Ireland sits at the forefront of this shift, and the MCTY programme puts you there: a flexible General Master's, or a focused Major in IoT Systems or the new Edge & IoT Security, spanning scalable IoT design, cloud-to-edge orchestration, and securing the devices at the network's edge.

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