How The RoadTest Program Has Changed Over the Years (2015 to 2023)

RE: How The RoadTest Program Has Changed Over the Years (2015 to 2023)

skruglewicz — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 05:29:56 GMT

Hello [mention:55e535b498a841ed8f2949266bc56dc3:e9ed411860ed4f2ba0265705b8793d05]

Since 2019, I have been an active member of the community. My journey began with the Sensing the World Challenge, where I completed my first challenge on the Advent Azure Sphere DK. Continuing my exploration, I ventured into the realm of road testing in March 2021, embarking on my first Road Test for the AVNET Monarch LTE-M Development Kit.

Through my participation in RoadTests sponsored by various vendors on element14, I've gained extensive knowledge in embedded systems, with a specific focus on Evaluation Kits. I've had the opportunity to evaluate kits from companies like NXP, Lattice, Renesas, Nordic, Infineon/Cypress, AMD Xilinx, Raspberry PI, and Arduino. My assessments primarily center around the Embedded Software environments of the Development Kits, and I also evaluate the community engagement through forums and support on company websites. Rigorous evaluation of documentation for accuracy and interpretation is a standard practice for me. My approach involves experimenting with example programs provided with the kit to understand the toolchains better. These examples are particularly valuable for intermediate embedded developers like myself in assessing product usage. They have also facilitated my exploration of Embedded RTOS, Connecting Sensors, Embedded Protocols, and best practices, including Connectivity protocols like Wi-Fi, BLE, LTE-M, and LoRaWAN. It is crucial that the examples are well written and working so that time is not wasted debugging them with Vendor Customer support.

To date, I have written 13 RoadTest reviews. Most of these vendors were new to me, resulting in a learning curve that extended my review hours. Conversely, familiar vendors required fewer hours. Now that I have gained more experience with Evaluation kits, I would like to see the vendor goals described in the road test description page. You acomplie\sed this in the Road Test Enroll to Review ModusToolbox Software with the Infineon PSoC 62S2 Evaluation Kit - element14 Community.

Moving forward, I will prioritize signing up for evaluation kits from vendors I've had positive experiences with, while still remaining open to kits that offer similar capabilities. My reviews will be conducted in accordance with the goals outlined by the vendor, or, in the absence of specified goals, my own guidelines as previously mentioned. When evaluating kits, I take a comprehensive approach, assessing all components of the EVK. Overall, this has been a rewarding experience, as each accepted application presents a fresh opportunity for learning and growth. Keep up the good work.

My two cents, Hope this helps

Steve K

RE: How The RoadTest Program Has Changed Over the Years (2015 to 2023)

dougw — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 14:21:42 GMT

The microcontroller and SBC landscape is still pretty vibrant with new products appearing at a brisk pace, but many of them aren't from traditional manufacturers like TI, so Avnet/Farnell/Newark do not carry a lot of these new products.

RE: How The RoadTest Program Has Changed Over the Years (2015 to 2023)

rscasny — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 20:42:40 GMT

I am a tad bit concerned that the products roadtested in 2023 were too hard or would take too much time to come up to speed to roadtest them in a reasonable amount of time. I am presented with a number of products. The ones I choose to roadtest are actually the easier ones. I try to start up a discussion before committing to one product. But most of what I am offered to choose from aren't for the hobbyist. Although I try to roadtest the maker boards,when I can get inventory.

RE: How The RoadTest Program Has Changed Over the Years (2015 to 2023)

DAB — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 19:32:37 GMT

Randall, you have done an excellent job of improving road test completions and obtaining ever interesting items to test.

I look forward to seeing even more interesting items. Who knows, I might find one I can tackle again.

RE: How The RoadTest Program Has Changed Over the Years (2015 to 2023)

colporteur — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 17:10:15 GMT

My RoadTest reviews stumbling block been documentation/support. I've thrown my hat into the RoadTest ring a few time this year with no success. Some of those RoadTest I was interested in, had comments about support and documentation.

Much has improved for RoadTest documents over the years. Is it possible to have a direct line of support to the vendor? When I have had problems I send my requests to RS. I have dragging him into simple requests.

I volunteer for some organizations that provide public access and another point of contact for their people.

RE: How The RoadTest Program Has Changed Over the Years (2015 to 2023)

Andrew J — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 20:17:03 GMT

Seeing it in pictures like this brings home the effort that goes into it, something not readily apparent just from seeing the individual roadtests announced. I think paths of assistance, particularly for more complex products would be useful: some suppliers can be more active in forums than others which can be frustrating when on a deadline. I’m finding many of the roadtests in more recent times to be quite complex or specialised products which makes it hard to apply; I’m comfortable with “stretch” roadtests but others, e.g £10k scopes, I suspect the supplier is looking for very specific and specialised reviews. It would be useful to understand with these what the supplier is hoping to see and the sorts of skills they want bringing to bear in the roadtest. Overall I think it a truly excellent programme.

RE: How The RoadTest Program Has Changed Over the Years (2015 to 2023)

robogary — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 17:17:17 GMT

The PPT charts are great.

One thing I'd suggest is they all have the same scaling 0-16 so the # of Road Tests are normalized between charts.

I think I did 5 Roadtests in 2019, the peak of controllers & SBCs, and "learning kits".

I've been a considerable slacker since, sensing I lacked the expertise to do an adequate job, altho I came pretty close to pressing the submit button a few times.

I'd probably be more active in 2024 if the RoadTests where "give this a ride" or "try this out on my simple idea" or "learn to .........".

RE: How The RoadTest Program Has Changed Over the Years (2015 to 2023)

JWx — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 16:46:42 GMT

That's really lot's of work - didn't have an idea of the scale of this project...

Timely sponsor's assistance would be very valuable - I had a luck to roadtest a product with good-working public support channel using GitHub, but I think that without it my roadtest could have a bit more negative tone...