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Getting Started In Robotics?
macarthy asks: "I'd like to get started in robotics. Coming from a programming background, I don't know much about electronics or engineering but I'm eager to learn. Where can I get the parts, tutorials and help to get started??"
I got started in the robot lab of a small liberal arts college. They didn't have a whole lot in the way of facilities; a few of their bots were expensive research jobs from Pioneer, but mostly it was a matter of students screwing parts together. Said parts mainly came from the more expensive catalog kits; in my last days they finally acquired a 3D printer. (Of course, you have to have some mechE background and CAD experience to use a 3D printer.)
If you want to do this academically, the easiest thing is to search your school, find out who has robots, and go work with those people. Be prepared for an enormous amount of frustration; academic robotics research is mainly the study of an infinite number of Things That Don't Work.
If what you want is home robotics, the Mindstorms kit may be an option. However, you may have been looking for a cheaper solution. Lego is still about the best solution (IMHO) for the body of a home hobbyist's robot, because it's fairly cheap and very easy to redesign as needed. Buy a big box of Lego Technic and order spare connectors as your cat eats them or they get lost in the couch. There are many alternatives to Mindstorms for controllers; many people swear by the BASIC stamp, for example. This is a case where you're going to have to search the web and catalogs to find some parts within your price range. The more soldering and splicing and assembly you're willing to do, the better the price you can get.
Note that for "advanced" stuff you will also need a workbench which lets you drill and cut and shape parts with reasonable accuracy. You're also likely to need some electronics supplies --- a soldering iron and a standard set of resistors at the very least. The initial outlays here could also eat into your budget.
Your situation sounds like that of a coder who'd like to play with robots but really doesn't have much in the way of dedicated workspace, tools, or know-how. Given your claimed lack of electronics skills, you probably want to avoid kits until you're more comfortable. In your situation, I'd start with Mindstorms: you get plenty of tutorial advice and can even start working with a friendly little GUI at first. You might pick up the O'Reilly book on Mindstorms to help you out. That setup should give you a flavor for what robot-building is really like and should cost you $200 maximum. It'll take a while to exhaust all the capacities of a mildly hacked Mindstorms set (the most you'll need is extra Lego or sensors), and by then you'll be beyond the realm of Ask Slashdot.
For everything ROBOT, try http://www.robotstore.com/ .....
This site has books, suplies, videos,
Good Luck!
By open source, we mean that the design will be free, although the parts will not.
Anyway, anyone interested in robotics is welcome to come visit us. By doing this as a group project, everyone can work on their own specialty... Programmers on the control or user interface, electricians on the electronics, machine workers on the hardware,
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There are also a lot of other sites on the Web. Recommended starting points:
- general search for robotics
- comp.robotics.misc (exact path?)
- legged-robots@egroups.com
- places like Mondo-Tronics
- feel free to ask me or any of these groups more specific questions
Hope that helps,Nuntius
Hum. Maybe I can be of some advice. I completed a bachelor's degree in robotics engineering some years ago and had a lot of fun doing it (it was a sort of cross between electronics, software and mechanical engineering). However, I saw more robotics jobs in Bangkok than I did here in Montréal, so I never really worked in that field, always sort of wound up in software engineering instead.
Robotics can be a very complex subject. Basically, it depends whether you want to build a robot or program one. At the very least, building a robot requires knowledge of control systems and inverse kinematics, for which you will need relatively advanced mathematics skills. OTOH, programming robots if fun and easy (I used to love Legos as a kid and when I saw that robot gizmo thing they've got, I sent them my resume)!
If ever you're serious about building a robot, read this book's introduction : Craig, John J., "Introduction to Robotics : Mechanics and Control", sec. ed., Addison-Wesley, 1989, 452 p. That'll get you started with inverse kinematics. If you're interested about controlling a motor, it's position and speed (which of course you'll need to move the robot arms), take a look at : Bucek, Victor J., "Control Systems : Continuous and Discrete", Prentice Hall, 1989, 304 p.
But watch out, these books can be pretty harsh. One thing you can also do is to go to the nearest engineering faculty and pick up whatever robotics course documentation you can find : that's usually an easier pill to swallow.
For now, if I were you, I'd go with the Lego thing. The documentation probably introduces all those robotics concepts in an easier manner and from there you can decide if you wanna go further.
Good luck!
Jean-Philippe