Get Started in Robotics

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Since each person who wants to start building robots enters with a different skill set, there is no single answer to the question of how to get started in robotics. However, there are a number of guidelines that have helped other people get started and they are listed below:

Contents

Join a Robotics Club

If you live in a metropolitan area, look around for a robotics club to join. Not all metropolitan areas have robotics clubs, but many do. A robotics club brings people of differing skill levels together to share ideas with. If there is not robotics club in your area, consider starting one. Some rather small communities have active robotics clubs (e.g. Grants Pass Oregon.)

If you live in the San Francisco bay area, there are two major robotics clubs. The [http://www.hbrobotics.org/ Home Brew Robotics Club] serves the southern bay and the [http://www.robots.org San Francisco Robotics Society of America] serves San Francisco and the north bay. There is no reason not to attend both meetings, since the meeting dates do not conflict.

Read Some Books/Magazines

There are many begining robotics books. Indeed there are so many to choose from, it is hard to know where to start. The first place to start is to take a trip to the local public library. Most public libraries have one or more robotics books on the shelves.

After visiting the library, it may be time to purchase a beginners book. The two below are quite reasonable:

  • Robot Builders Bonanza (Third Edition) by Gordon M. McComb and Myke Prydko, McGraw Hill/Tab Books, 2006, ISBN:978-0071468930.
  • Building Robots for Beginners by David Cook, Apress, 2002, ISBN:978-1893115446.

In addition to books, there a two robotics magazines for the United States market:

Build a Robotics Kit

There are a number of robotics systems out there. Some of the more popular ones are listed below:

  • Lego Mindstorms NXT
  • VEX Robotics Design System
    • VEXplorer
  • Parallax Robotics
    • BoeBot
    • Scribbler

Things Not to Do

The most important thing to avoid is trying to build a big anthropomorphic robot as the first robotics project. The first robot should be small, inexpensive, and easily assembled. Each successfully built robot leads to the next larger and more functional robot.

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