Hi there, I'm Omar 👋

I'm an embedded systems enthusiast diligent about improving the Embedded Rust learning curve 📈 🦀

Interest in embedded Rust has been increasing over time and the educational material must remain on par with this level of excitement. A lack of attention to education might develop an increasing perception of a steep learning curve that would impede prospects of rapid growth.

Some of my existing work includes 👷‍♂️:

• The Apollolabs Tech Blog: This blog has several series and is associated with many examples and tutorials for both the STM32 and the ESP32.
• The Embedded Rustacean Newsletter: A bi-monthly periodical on everything embedded Rust.
• "Wired World: A Beginner's Guide to Embedded Electronic Interfaces": A entry-level book focused on embedded electronics essential knowledge.

🧐 The State of Embedded Rust Education

The embedded Rust space has plenty of hardware and software setup options/combinations. This would result in:

1. Confusing beginners about where or how to get started 😵‍💫.
2. Scattering community efforts in the development of learning material 🤹‍♀️.

You can read my detailed thoughts in this blog post.

🔮 My Vision

As I proceed in my journey, my overarching goal is to develop a clear path for beginners learning embedded Rust. This is in addition to reducing the amount of time and effort to get started. This would require restricting the number of starting choices (hardware, software toolchains...etc.) to reduce beginner confusion. Ideally, I would hope that these efforts would also help bring community focus toward educational material development.

Rather than having many choices of hardware and software, I yearn for the development of a more focused, self-contained, solution. This solution revolves around three key areas:

🛠️ Hardware

Introducing four tiers of development boards as follows:

• 🦐 Entry level - Focus on bare-metal development w/o connectivity
• 🦀 Pro - Focus on advanced (OS) development w/o connectivity
• 📡 🦐 IoT Entry level - Focus on bare-metal development w/ connectivity
• 📡 🦀 IoT Pro - Focus on advanced (OS) development w/ connectivity

These boards would have a set of integrated functions and also allow expansion by supporting standard interfaces like Arduino shields and qwiic.

📀 Software

Introduce the tools necessary to complement the hardware to both program and learn.

• 📏 VSCode Extension - This extension would help spawning pre-configured starter projects for the above hardware options in seconds. This includes toolchain setup for debug and logging (including graphing solutions).
• 🤖 Chatbot - This would be a knowledge-based chatbot that learners can resort to for quick answers. The chatbot would incorporate collective knowledge about the hardware, software, and issues.
• 📦 Crates - These are support crates for the hardware to assist in rapid development.

📚 Content

Develop content focused on educating on embedded Rust.

• 📖 Tutorials and Guides - These are learning guides, examples, and tutorials targeting the hardware expanding the learning material.

🎯 My Goals

I have been doing this work in my spare time, and as a result, sponsorship would really help sustain and expand my efforts further. In supporting me, your sponsorship funds 💵 would be going toward sustaining and achieving the following goals:

• 🏋️ Sustain effort in generating embedded Rust educational content.
• 📢 Sustain effort toward keeping the community informed about new developments in embedded Rust.
• 🧰 Develop hardware (dev boards) focused on embedded dev.
• 👨‍💻 Develop a VSCode extension supporting the embedded educational hardware.
• 🤖 Develop a knowledge-based chatbot for quick aid in the learning process.
• 👨‍🏫 Contribute toward embedded Rust training material projects.