I agree with this way of saying it 100%. I used strategies like that to make my everyday hobbies/activities look interesting when I applied to medical school years ago. In fact, questions asked about me personally during my interview were only about my extracurricular activities

Edit: I suppose you could say "platforms" if you didn't want to use "embedded systems"

Yeah, in this case I was referring to a translation utility by RC.

I put it down as a hobby but I didn't refer to it as 'hacking'. I used reverse engineering of classic games and things of that sort to describe it. It helped me get my first programming job I'm sure. As you move up in ranks, you won't really need it as much unless you need low level assembly at the job you're applying for.