Hi, I'm fairly new with Robotics. I've been interested in all kinds of Sciences for a long time. After I saw a Video on a Wewssite about a robotic Dragonfly and a robotic lizard that could walk aswell swim using it's tail, I decided to look for things online to get started on Robotics.
So far I've only found tutorials, books and video with titles like: 'Learn how to build your first robot', 'Learn how to build a robot', 'Your first robot' etcetera.
I have doubts about these websites, books and video's. They're all step-by-step instructions on how to build a simple robot, but they don't seem like they would be very effective at learning people how to build robots. We got steps like: Put this cable into this one, this one into that port, that one into this port etc.
Granted, it does teach you how to select the right wheels, tracks, sensors, motors and you get a nice robot, but back to the cables. If a tutorial just tells me to put them where the tutorial tells me to put them, how am I ever going to know by myself where to put 'em once I start designing and building my own stuff. I have a nice robot then and I have some cables, but I have no idea what to do with them whatsoever.
Are there any tutorials that teach how make your own stuff without step-by-step instructions from a 3rd party?
My take on the standard tutorial builds out there.
I believe the tutorials are designed like that because that seems to be how many people learn. They learn by doing. If they don’t know that their photo resistive voltage divider should be plugged in to an analog input to be able to sense light levels then it is better to be explicit. It might be useful to explain why a particular pin is being used over one of the other 20+ pins available.
Your question would also seem to be answered by looking at how most programmers are taught. “Hello World” is probably the first program one learns. Blinking a LED is similar for uC. You/We aren’t told explicitly what all the words/characters/codes mean, just type this in, run it, then explain. Until you see something working/not working some people have a difficult time understanding how/why it works. Hence the explicit instructions on how to construct one’s first robot. If you plug the wrong wire in to the wrong place you might end up with dead uC.
Maybe what you are looking for is like chickenparmi said, his tutorials. Not everyone learns the same way.
you must first learn maybe basic electroncis, programming, etc. because watching and copying alone is just “assembling”, many people here learn from LEGO mindstorms, although I don’t encourage it, but many people does, so maybe try that. then read books, of course.
As I read that question I would say yes, experimenting does help to learn how to build robots.
The others already poited out that you still need some basic understandng of some things but let me tell you how I see that.
Experimenting means to use given applications/installations and modify them. Also it means to take whatever material you can get your hands on and try to make it work for your robot. Does a Popsicle stick support the weight of your robot or do you need Aluminium for that. How long can a beam be to be stable…start with a long one and cut it down to the point when it fits. What resistor value is right to get the LDE as bright enough but without blow it? Testing and experimenting is not quite professional but it helps to get things done without complicated calculations or construction plans.
See the robots here. Some of them are just thrown together (no offence guys…mine are thrown together as well) without any plans, just found a CD/DVD and thought that it could be a nice robot base…glue some cardboard on it as a holder for sensors, zip tie motors on the DVD and you are almost done.
That is experimenting with possibilities, yes we do that all the time.
