I feel like I'm greatly missing out on new stuff like this. I'm trying to get a turtle bot together and build a sort of lab component of Prof Thrun's robot car class. But I wonder what else I could be doing. Anyone have pointers?
Building and (most importantly) programming one of those was a pipe dream back when I used to browse Let's Make Robots a bunch of years ago.
Sadly nowadays I just can't get into these projects that'd need me to spend money and would just sit on a drawer until the ends of the time after completed.
RIP
My Robotics professor developed ROBOLAB with Lego + LabView. In return, Lego funded part of the robotics department. We had the most amazing Lego lab. Bins of every shape piece you could ask for. It was really a childhood dream come to life.
ok, so it's pretty obvious mainstream robotics' time is finally coming. growing up, I could teach myself many facets of software engineering with nothing more than a few books and a computer, and build all kinds of interesting projects that I could use myself and share with others, like games, utilities, web sites, etc.
this analogue doesn't seem to be there for learning robotics. if I hack on a robotics project, it feels like it's going to be more of a toy or a demo, and it is self contained and not something that I can share with others to use. sure, I can spend time getting a robot to solve a simple puzzle, navigate a maze, or whatever, but these types of projects seem so less motivating compared to the types of things that got me into coding in the first place: things I could share with others and that they would enjoy using. Are there projects like this? What are some robotics projects that I can build and learn from while and actually use and enjoy, today, relatively cheaply? I want to learn this stuff but it feels very forced to find that most projects seem very academic in nature and not "shippable" like even the most basic toy projects I did when starting out.
I went through Thurn's self-driving car class and started the mobile robot control course on Coursera, but the apex of these is at best a simple little robot platform moving around my house sensing tape on the floor. Even that will cost me $1000, in practice I will probably end up with just a simulation on my PC. Mindstorms looks cool but almost by definition it is just a toy. When can I build a robot that will perform real, useful automation that will improve my life, even in some marginal way, not just seem like a cool toy? How can I build a robot that will fetch me a beer or let the dog out or get the mail or something even minor that will make me feel like I am doing something with purpose and a real goal and not a homework assignment to get a robot to perform some meaningless task.
Thanks, I didn't know such a thing existed. We're a little past it though. Her interests are in industrial robots, and she's been building with a Mindstorms kit for a couple of years now. We're likely to move on to Arduino based projects over the summer break.
I did a few workshops coding LEGO parts at around age 10. We did stuff like turning lights on- and off or measuring the temperature. Maybe a good place to start, as it connects to the real world. I imagine LEGO has more interesting parts these days. Like robots or drones.
A very interesting angle indeed. MIT recently switched their SICP based course to a robot-centric course for teaching computer "science". It is certainly more fun to infuse some hardware work into the curriculum. It is much more fun these days with all kinds of controllers being much more easily available - think Lego Mindstorms.
> Not sure if there's still tools out there where a 13 year old kid with no technical experience can immediately get gratification with something so simple on a computer.
Lego MindStorms! There's a lab at my local university filled with Lego and basic robot sensors/actuators. Schools and other community clubs can book one-time or regular workshops.
What fascinates me the most is the adaptability to the students' abilities. Young students can do "block based programming", telling the robot what to do with very simple command blocks that connect to each other. With rising profession, advanced blocks can be made available that are more powerful, resembling software control structures. New sensors can be used and robots are built by the students themselves instead of prebuilt. At some point, you can ditch the graphical block based programming and show the generated Java code and introduce the students to basic software development.
There are actually even surprisingly more than one would initially think. In addition to Robozzle and BotLogic, there's LightBot(actually 2 versions), Lego Mindstorms, Daisy the Dinosaur, CargoBot, Move the Turtle, Robot Turtles (board game), and RoboMind (just found this one, looks fascinating) to name just a select few of an ever growing number of similar games. Personally, I hope one day there are more "programming" games with an educational spin than there are first person shooters, but that's just because I'm hooked.
The Mindstorms kits, a few pounds of technic parts are also pretty good for dipping your toe into robotics. The Mindstorms have instructions on building line-following cars and a variety of other things.
I have fond memories of hacking together a 10 dpi photocopier using the light sensor and a few motors.
Not yet, but I was thinking about starting with the robot turtles board game. I might also do some bread board and some basic logic chips with LEDs at some point to. I remember those cool little DIY manuals from radio shack. I still have the learning electronics one in my book collection.
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