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The week on the bench · Monday to Sunday, UTC

Week 19, 2026 · 4 to 10 May

5 entries published: 1 tool, 2 builds, 1 Magic Smoke, 1 news. This page lists what was published; it is not a newsletter issue.

The week as a scope trace

Mon 4Tue 5Wed 6Thu 7Fri 8Sat 9Sun 10Tools1BB-0037, Tool: Embedded-AI Workspace: MISRA skill, datasheet MCP and HIL runner for STM32F4. Mon 4 May, 03:47 UTC. 1 point.Builds2BB-0039, Build: wfb-link: Codex brings up an RTL8812AU Wi-Fi adapter from macOS userspace. Thu 7 May, 18:50 UTC. 1 point.BB-0041, Build: A 128-tube VFD clock where Claude wrote all 8,000 lines of firmware. Sat 9 May, 16:30 UTC. 9 points.Magic Smoke1BB-0038, Magic Smoke: Building robots with Claude: a rover that hit trees, and the fixes that followed. Mon 4 May, 21:10 UTC. 5 points.Guides0News1BB-0040, News: Root Access launches Seb, a hardware-aware coding agent for firmware. Fri 8 May, 18:31 UTC. 1 point.Discussions0

One channel per kind, one pulse per entry at the hour it was published. Taller pulses have more points.

Build of the week · BB-0041

A 128-tube VFD clock where Claude wrote all 8,000 lines of firmware

Cliff Lasser built a clock from 128 Soviet IV-25 VFD tubes on eight boards, each run by an Arduino Nano ESP32 over RS485. He wrote about 15 pages of specification, and Claude wrote all the code, now over 8,000 lines. The first version, about 3,500 lines, ran on the first try with one bug: the display was rotated 180 degrees.

Shown workingBy Cliff Lasser · hackaday.io · Sat 9 May, 16:30 UTC

Tools1

All tools

  1. 5 mo ago

    ToolBB-0037github.com5 starsTypeScript

    Embedded-AI Workspace: MISRA skill, datasheet MCP and HIL runner for STM32F4

    Atilla Basut, a computer science student, built three pieces that help Claude write STM32F4 firmware. A MISRA-C review skill checks code, and an MCP server searches the 1,700-page RM0090 reference manual and lints register writes. A serial MCP server and HIL runner flash an STM32F4-DISCOVERY and run UART tests. The README says it was checked on that board.

    Claimed

Builds2

All builds

  1. 5 mo ago

    BuildBB-0041hackaday.ioBuild of the week

    A 128-tube VFD clock where Claude wrote all 8,000 lines of firmware

    Cliff Lasser built a clock from 128 Soviet IV-25 VFD tubes on eight boards, each run by an Arduino Nano ESP32 over RS485. He wrote about 15 pages of specification, and Claude wrote all the code, now over 8,000 lines. The first version, about 3,500 lines, ran on the first try with one bug: the display was rotated 180 degrees.

    Shown working

  2. 5 mo ago

    BuildBB-0039news.ycombinator.com

    A software engineer had Codex with GPT-5.5 write most of wfb-link, a Rust stack that drives an ALFA AWUS036ACH Wi-Fi adapter from macOS userspace. Claude Opus 4.7 helped at times. The stack initializes the RTL8812AU and sends and receives WFB-NG frames, with a Raspberry Pi 5 at the far end. The Show HN post says the alpha took two weeks.

    Claimed

Magic Smoke1

All Magic Smoke

  1. 5 mo ago

    Magic SmokeBB-0038aliceplante.substack.comCurator pick

    Building robots with Claude: a rover that hit trees, and the fixes that followed

    Alice Plante had Claude write the code and choose actions for a SunFounder PiCar-X on a Raspberry Pi 5 and a FrodoBots Earth Rover. The Earth Rover's commands went through a cloud relay while Opus took about ten seconds to answer, and it drove into trees. A small binary on the rover cut command latency to under 10 ms.

    Claimed

News1

All news

  1. 5 mo ago

    NewsBB-0040news.ycombinator.com

    Root Access launches Seb, a hardware-aware coding agent for firmware

    Root Access, a US maker of electronics for drones and robots, opened its Seb coding agent to the public on 8 May. In a Show HN post, founding engineer Vignesh K, a former TI applications engineer, says Seb reads schematics, datasheets and BOMs, mixes deterministic algorithms with LLM calls and connects to debuggers and logs. We saw no demo.

    Claimed