This paper presents a student's observations from an undergraduate research project that explored using Java to implement the software for a real-time embedded system that was originally implemented in a university-level real-time systems course using Ada 95. It briefly gives an overview of the project, the decision made concerning which Java virtual machine to use, and how that virtual machine performed in the real-time environment. It then goes into detail about the merits and drawbacks of using Java to implement real-time and embedded systems such as this one and how using Java to implement them compares with using Ada.