The week on the bench · Monday to Sunday, UTC
Week 34, 2026 · 17 to 23 August
7 entries published: 2 tools, 4 builds, 1 guide. 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-0171
Tiny Engineer: a desk robot that acts out what your coding agent is doing
Tiny Engineer is an open-source desk robot that acts out a coding agent's work. It looks around while files are read, types while code is written and rings a bell when the task ends. An ESP32-C3 on an open KiCad control board drives five SG90 servos and an OLED face. The README links a demo video and build photos.
Tools2
All tools2 mo ago
OpenBaud: serial devices as audited, replayable tools for coding agents
OpenBaud connects Codex to local serial devices through an MCP server and plugin, with every write audited. It identifies ports from USB metadata, checks framing and checksums, and asks for acknowledgment before dangerous commands. Each byte goes to a capture that replays without hardware. The demo GIF and 46-second video show it on an ESP32-S3.
Shown working2 mo ago
mcu-skills: per-board Claude Code skills for STM32, ESP32, RP2040 and nRF52
mcu-skills packs per-board knowledge for Claude Code into 21 skills, from the WeAct Black Pill to the Waveshare ESP32-C6-LCD-1.47. Each holds pin functions, working clock trees, HAL calls that fail silently and how to flash the chip. The README says each skill's template project builds. It reports no tests on hardware.
Claimed
Builds4
All builds2 mo ago
Tiny Engineer: a desk robot that acts out what your coding agent is doing
Tiny Engineer is an open-source desk robot that acts out a coding agent's work. It looks around while files are read, types while code is written and rings a bell when the task ends. An ESP32-C3 on an open KiCad control board drives five SG90 servos and an OLED face. The README links a demo video and build photos.
Shown working2 mo ago
Hermes Agent on an Arduino UNO Q runs Game of Life on the LED matrix
A Hacker News poster installed Hermes Agent over SSH on the Linux side of an Arduino UNO Q and connected a ChatGPT subscription. Asked to blink an LED, the agent did. Asked for Conway's Game of Life on the 8x13 LED matrix, the post says it searched the board's docs and got it running. There are no photos or logs.
Claimed2 mo ago
Claude Code plans and compiles an ESPHome multi-sensor for an ESP32 DevKit
XDA's Anurag Singh used Claude Code to plan an ESPHome multi-sensor on an ESP32-WROOM-32 DevKit. It put an LD2410C mmWave sensor on UART pins and a BME280 and BH1750 on shared I2C pins, then wrote, validated and compiled the YAML. He says the device then reported to Home Assistant. The article shows screenshots, not the build.
Claimed2 mo ago
Tiny2040 voice player built with Copilot and Antigravity, no hand-written code
The author of a dev.to post built a MicroPython voice-announcement player on a Pimoroni Tiny2040 with a MAX98357A amplifier without editing code by hand. GitHub Copilot wrote it until it looped on out-of-memory errors, and Google Antigravity fixed the storage problem. The post says the agent reported all tests passing while a playback-speed change had no effect.
Claimed
Guides1
All guides2 mo ago
Tulip Tree Technology: an emulated STM32 for an AI agent to test firmware on
Tulip Tree Technology has an AI coding agent write a hello-world for an STM32F030 and run it on Emerson, the company's own hardware emulator. The 8-minute video uses emctl to check that the firmware ran correctly, not just that it compiled. It also covers what Emerson models and what it leaves out. No physical board appears.
Claimed
