Question: How do you explain embedded software to a 9, 7 and 5 year old?

Answer: Anything with a tiny brain deserves to grow up properly.

The other day I tried explaining to my boys what we do at 4Rooks. They are nine, seven and five.

Of course, they are curious about what I do. As much as we value a healthy home and work balance, I am proud of my work and of what 4Rooks GmbH is building. My kids are very much on the journey with me as 4R grows.

In my home office, I have a picture on the wall of our ROSA mascot, a little colourful bird. That immediately caught their attention. They call her Rosie.

So, I did not start with systems architecture or embedded software.

I started in our kitchen. I asked them to look around for electronic items around the house.

The dishwasher. The fridge. The smart light bulb. The robot hoover. The Tonie box.

Then I asked them a simple question:

What do all these things have inside them?

They guessed wires. Buttons. Electricity.

I told them:

They all have a tiny brain.

A small chip. An MPU or an MCU. A little computer hidden inside the product.

And everything they thought could have ROSA inside it, we added a little ROSA sticker.

Soon Rosie Stickers were everywhere!

What that tiny brain actually does

That tiny chip is what makes each device intelligent.

It controls the washing cycles in the dishwasher. It keeps the fridge at the right temperature. It adjusts the smart light bulb. It guides the robot hoover around the furniture. It makes sure the Tonie box plays the right story.

None of that happens without software.

And that is where 4Rooks works.

So what does ROSA really mean?

I explained it like this.

Every device with a tiny brain needs good software to think properly. To stay secure. To receive updates safely. To still work when they have gone to university, got a job and moved into their own home.

The people who come to us still build a brand new brain every time they make a new machine. Instead of reinventing the brain each time, ROSA gives them a structured foundation they can build on again and again.

We help the little brains inside machines grow up properly.

My middle child - the one who loves connecting everything to something - looked at me and said “Oh, that’s cool. Like vegetables then. They help our brain and make us grow.”

If you are a parent, you know how it is with kids and vegetables. I usually have to explain that this is how their 'heroes' grow their brains and muscles.

But in that moment, I was impressed. Not just with him, but with myself.

I have been trying to truly understand what we do for almost ten months.

Why this matters

Homes are becoming smarter. Devices communicate with each other. Appliances connect to cloud services. Machines optimise performance over time. AI increasingly runs directly on the device itself.

Anything that runs on an MPU or MCU can benefit from a proper software foundation. Anything using technologies such as Linux, Zephyr, Zigbee, Matter and similar embedded stacks can build on it.

If a product contains a chip and needs structured, secure, long term software, it deserves more than a one off firmware project.

It deserves a foundation.

Anything with a tiny brain inside it deserves to grow up properly.

That is what 4Rooks are building with ROSA.

And according to my boys, she now lives all over our house!