I stumbled on this site from a link on the nasa page as was drawn to the community developement that happens here. I’ve seen a lot of the robots on the site, as well as started ordering parts for my start here robot. However the catch is that i know nothing of C++ or robots in general. Im in highschool at the moment and havent been offered courses on electrical engineering, or robotics but it has always been one of my foremost dreams to build robots. While looking around the people here make it seem easy, building large robots, or programming hundreads of lines of code. I was just wondering how people were introduced to robotics from the very beginning so i can hopefully set down the same path. Also if anyone has any advice on maybe textbooks or something that teach circuitry, or C++, anything that could help me is welcome. Im happy i stumbled upon this site and ill be around in the future.
wow, the Nasa link works!
I was wondering if that link actually gave use visitors. Thanks for the intel.
About books and stuff. All I’ve got is the search box (the one on this site and of course that other one). Try “books”.
And here is another 2 links you might already have seen before:
Stanford School of Engineering
Welcome on board iCon!
Well, if you’re working with
Well, if you’re working with the “start here” bot, I believe you will be using BASIC. BASIC is a lot easier to swallow than C++ because it nearly looks like it’s written in english.
I’d recommend checking out the Picaxe website, all of their manuals are online and FREE! Plus, check out other bots on here that are made with PICAXE chips, we are encouraged to share code, so that makes it easier to check out samples.
And peruse the newbie forum!!! Great source of information!
AND WELCOME TO THE CLUB! ^o^
I started with:a book - The
I started with:
- a book - The Absolute Beginners Guide to Building Robots
- a very samll amount of very old electronics knowledge (I knew the difference between a resistor and a capacitor and had soldered a handful of capacitors)
- some basic tools from my household toolbox (wire strippers, screwdriver, etc)
- half a life-time’s experience in the IT industry starting as a programmer (not as useful as it might sound)
I built the mousey robot from the book - it’s on my robot page - using some scrap from round the house an a solarbotics kit of the electronic parts (about USD20). No programming required and very satisfying.
My wife gave me a Lego Mindstorms nxt for Christmas. That’s great because you can build stuff real fast then tear it down and build something else. But it’s pricey.
Now, maybe 4 to 6 months later, I’m building robots from electronic components and parts from robot sites. Still no serious programming done yet. I’ve probably spent USD300 to USD400 since my first robot, but I’ve built a stock of parts and tools as I’ve needed them.
Programming (Pic Basic) will come once I’ve got a robot to program.
Here are some programming links.
For programming Picaxe CPU’s read this: http://www.rev-ed.co.uk/docs/picaxe_manual2.pdf
For starting to learn c go here: http://www.cprogramming.com/
For C++ learning go here: http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial.html
For learning Java go here: http://www.javabeginner.com/
For learning C# go here: http://www.csharp-station.com/Tutorial.aspx
Hope these links help. 
thanks guys, i’ve been
thanks guys, i’ve been scorlling through the site some more thanks to the helpful links you guys posted. Ill also being paying B&N a trip to pick up some beginner books on robotics.