The week on the bench · Monday to Sunday, UTC
Week 31, 2026 · 27 July to 2 August
11 entries published: 7 tools, 2 builds, 2 guides. This page lists what was published; it is not a newsletter issue.
The week as a scope trace
One channel per kind, one pulse per entry at the hour it was published. Taller pulses have more points.
Build of the week · BB-0141
Tal Raviv has Claude drive a SunFounder PiCar-X around his house
Tal Raviv connected Claude to a SunFounder PiCar-X through a terminal on its Raspberry Pi, with camera photos as feedback. The robot saved notes, learned gentler turns and a three-point turn, and spent about 15 minutes parking at a filing cabinet instead of 20 cm from the door. The post embeds an edited demo video.
Tools7
All tools2 mo ago
pyMSO5000: an MCP server for Rigol MSO5000 scopes that checks every SCPI call
Matthias Blaicher's pyMSO5000 controls Rigol MSO5000 oscilloscopes over VISA from Python or an MCP server. It checks every command against SCPI definitions extracted from the scope's firmware; a bad argument fails locally instead of landing in the error queue. The MCP server adds screenshots and front-panel control. The README's examples use an MSO5074 over LAN.
Claimed2 mo ago
esparagus: an ESP32 flasher that reports to coding agents in NDJSON
esparagus is a Rust port of esptool that reports to programs instead of people. It emits NDJSON events, a JSON report of suggested next steps and a fixed exit code per failure class. A monitor watches the boot log for crashes and reboot loops. Sylwester Sosnowski reports full bench validation only on an ESP32-P4.
Claimed2 mo ago
labgrid-mcp: put a labgrid hardware lab behind 47 MCP tools
labgrid-mcp puts a labgrid hardware lab behind 47 MCP tools, from reserving a board to switching its power and reading its serial console. SSH commands and, when enabled, flashing are also covered; flashing and other irreversible actions are off by default. The README's demo GIF shows Claude driving the built-in fake lab, with no hardware attached.
Claimed2 mo ago
Velxio: browser ESP32 simulation with an agent that wires parts and writes firmware
Velxio simulates more than 30 boards in the browser, ten of them ESP32 variants emulated in QEMU. Its AI agent, on paid plans, wires parts on the canvas, writes the firmware, compiles it and reads the serial monitor. All of it is simulation; creator David Montero Crespo writes that the build is the binary you would flash.
Claimed2 mo ago
Commander: MCP control for an EZ-Robot JD humanoid with safety tiers
Commander replaces Synthiam ARC with local control software for the EZ-Robot JD humanoid, with no vendor account or cloud. An agent in any MCP client gets 15 bounded tools, with server-side guardrails, to walk the robot, look through its camera and speak. The README says this was verified on the robot; it shows no photos or video.
Claimed3 mo ago
CMSIS Skills: Open-CMSIS-Pack publishes agent skills for MCU bring-up and debug
CMSIS Skills, a repository under the Open-CMSIS-Pack project, collects agent skills for building and bringing up microcontroller projects with CMSIS tools. Skills find board support packs, resolve Zephyr board targets, detect debug topology with pyOCD and record a board's debug and trace routing. Each skill names the extra probe or vendor tool it needs. The README shows no hardware runs.
Claimed3 mo ago
SerialWarden: a serial-port broker shared by terminals, flashers and agents
SerialWarden runs a daemon that owns a board's serial port and records everything, while people and agents attach as clients. Agents connect over MCP and their writes wait for approval in the web UI, while flash tools borrow the port on a lease. The README's demo GIF runs on a Realtek Ameba board, with a stand-in script for the lease.
Shown working
Builds2
All builds2 mo ago
Hermes Agent on a 1 GB Raspberry Pi 3B+ uploads a sketch to the bench board, retrying on its own
Steve from IQ Workshop ran Hermes Agent on a 1 GB Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Plus, using OpenAI's Codex model and Telegram for chat. He asked it to write and upload a countdown blink sketch to an ESP32 on his workbench. The first upload failed; the agent diagnosed the error, retried and saved the fix to its memory.
Shown working3 mo ago
Tal Raviv has Claude drive a SunFounder PiCar-X around his house
Tal Raviv connected Claude to a SunFounder PiCar-X through a terminal on its Raspberry Pi, with camera photos as feedback. The robot saved notes, learned gentler turns and a three-point turn, and spent about 15 minutes parking at a filing cabinet instead of 20 cm from the door. The post embeds an edited demo video.
Shown working
Guides2
All guides2 mo ago
Espressif's four-hour workshop on coding ESP-IDF firmware with an AI agent
Espressif published a four-hour workshop on using AI coding agents in Cursor or VS Code for ESP-IDF v6.0.2 work on an ESP32-C5-DevKitC. Six assignments cover agent setup with the Espressif documentation MCP server, spec-driven prompts, token use and debugging. An optional exercise decodes LED frames from a Saleae Logic 2 capture. We found no captures or photos.
Claimed3 mo ago
Claude Code brings up a legacy FPGA project on an Arty A7, then saves the steps as skills
In an Octopart video, Ari Mahpour gives Claude Code one prompt and an attached Analog Discovery 2. Running Opus 4.8, it upgrades a Vivado 2018 design to 2025.2 and programs a Digilent Arty A7 in about 15 minutes. Mahpour then saves the session as a CLAUDE.md file and skills; a fresh session repeats the bring-up in seconds.
Shown working
