Robot Builder’s Bonanza, 4th Edition

Over the last few decades robots have become more accessible than ever before to an average hobbyist. The combination of ever decreasing prices of electronic components, increasing power of the microprocessors, and the proliferation and standardization of information on building robots have all contributed to this trend. Today you can just walk into a well-stocked electronics or toys store and for a relatively low price acquire either an already assembled robot, or a fairly versatile robot assembly kit. However, for every true tinkerer a great source of pleasure is designing and assembling a robot more or less from scratch. If you are one of these patient and technically proficient souls then “Robot Builder’s Bonanza” is a perfect instruction manual for your robot building adventures.

There are no prerequisites for using this book, although some basic familiarity with electronics, model building, construction and programming would be very useful and would significantly speed-up the learning process. If you don’t have any of those skills, you might want to pick them up beforehand. There are many good online tutorials and I would recommend that you do a bit of Googling beforehand. On the other hand, you may just want to pick up those skills as you need them. At the very minimum, you ought to be fairly technically inclined before deciding to go through this book and learn how to build your own robots.

“Robot Builder’s Bonanza” is organized around eight different sections, each of which covers one major component of building a robot. The sections are: “The Art and Science of Robot Building,” “Robot Construction,” “Power, Motors, and Locomotion,” “Hands-on Robotics Projects,” “Robot Electronics,” “Computers and Electronic Control,” “Microcontroller Brains,” and “Sensors, Navigation and Feedback.”

The book contains many different projects, and there is over a 100 of them to choose from. They vary in difficulty, with the easier ones covered first. The fourth edition comes with ten all-new construction plans. It also covers Aurdino microcontroller, which is becoming a de-facto standard for many hobby and small-scale projects.

The material is very detailed and comes with a lot of accompanying information. However, you won’t find many step-by-step instructions in here. This is where some prior technical skills would come in handy.

The book comes with an accompanying website where you will find material that is not covered in the book, including all the prerequisite basic skills in assembling, soldering, and other technical aspects of building anything. The website also includes many larger programs that were too long to be included in the book.

Overall, this is a very instructive and comprehensive introductory robotics resource. If you were trying to build your very first robot then “Robot Builder’s Bonanza” would be an invaluable book to have. It will save you many hours of trying to learn this material from various scattered sources. It’s a must have for every robotics beginner.

***** Review copy provided by the publisher. *****

 

Bojan Tunguz

Bojan Tunguz was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which he and his family fled during the civil war for the neighboring Croatia. Over the past two decades he has studied, lived and worked in the United States. He is a theoretical physicist with degrees from Stanford and University of Illinois. Tunguz has taught physics at several prominent liberal arts colleges and has been writing about physics, science and technology for more than a decade. He also has a wide spectrum of interests, and reads and writes about current events, society, culture, religion and politics. Over the years he has reviewed many of the books that he has read, and posted his reviews on various online outlets. In 2011 he had become a top 10 reviewer on Amazon.com, where he continues to be very active. Aside from reading and writing, Tunguz enjoys traveling, digital photography, hiking, and fitness. He resides with his wife in Indiana. You can follow my review updates on the following pages as well: Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/tunguzreview Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/tunguzreviews Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/104312842297641697463/posts

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