Prolems with Critical Software.

So right now I am a software guy for a fairly major -atleast major to me- project that could become an international product come February. They want this to be deployed in around the US and Canada. Because I don't want to mention what exactly it is I'm making, I won't say anymore than: It's designed to save dozens of lives per year, and the more that are installed the fewer fatalities per year will be seen. This sucker is supposed to save lives. Because its embedded, Its just has to work. No help from me, its not like a school project. Its a full blown Product at the end. It-has-to-work.

This is where I'm getting a little nervous. There is only one software guy -me-. Which means all the behaviour that this thing does, all the implementation, is going to be done by a fresh out of undergrad EE. With no real world programming experience. I know my stuff, and I think I can get it to run. ...but get it to run perfectly for years at a time without ever faulting once? Shit I'm happy when my little projects run minutes at a time without screwing up.

What I'm getting at here is that, in the case of safety critical programming. It should really be done as a team, of at least 2 qualified people. My way of doing things might work, but might not be fail safe-enough.

If you knew the device that might save your life was tied back to some 22yr old punk E.E. who did this himself in his room late nights on weekends. Would you trust it???

Worries me is all.

-DK

After a Hiatus, I'm kind of around again.

Jugguling between 4 clubs, job, school, and a social life means I spend so much time in front of a computer. Any free time in there I kind of want to be away from it. You understand right?

Anyway I thought I should put an update here about whats all going on.

One club I am on is a small group of Engineers who are designing a Recumbent Bike for competition in September 2011. This bike is built for speed and should be going to Battle Mountain in Nevada.

I was recruited for some electronic vision, telemetry, and power considerations. They want some cameras on the car to view outside (helping with the slipstream the car can have). Should be awesome! If I can get over my claustrophobia I might be able to try and drive the thing.

For the RobotRacing Team, we've moved on significantly from our winnings in July. >my< vehicle design was changed literally 2 days before competition. Not cool but I pulled something out. It didn't look terrible. Now I'm helping with vision systems as well as Safety, and a slew of other things. We don't know about the competition so its a little speculative on our part right now.

For the Formula SAE team at school I've been bumped up to Electrical Team Captain. Which is good I guess? we don't really know how things are going right now, find out tomorrow. Making a wheel, shifter, main controller, lights and safety stuff for it too.

Finally a Non-engineering team I'm on. Trying to teach kids about the technical side of their everyday lives. A program called Lets Talk Science. We'll see what I can do with them. I feel like I should atleast give back a bit of the knowledge I have now. It's valuable, and could really steer kids into cool new positions in the future. I havent done anything for them...yet.

After that I have a job working on a secret project for a major Canadian ...train company. Can ya' guess? I'm only being a little cautious with name dropping because last time I bad mouthed Hydro One they left some comments for me to read. (Y'all still hiring??). Anyway I'm the code guy for the team apparently. ...I wish I was more hardware but I have a deal with them that they are switching up my program to a Ma.Sc. if I stick with it. Can't say no to that! ....right?

There's been a lot that's gone on since may. No reason to update it now beyond bringing myself up to speed here.

Yeah! I want to start posting useful CUDA code and some image processing stuff here when I get a chance. Appears that some people will find it useful someday. Soon.

With that said, I'm signing off.