Robot Builder's Bonanza, 4th Edition

This book is amazing! It's like taking a set of mechanical, electrical, and software "practitioner-level" courses focused on robotics at your local community college, but only costs you what's equivalent to a modest dinner for one person. Gordon McComb's writing style is incredibly easy to read, and is jammed packed with loads of practical knowledge of the above topics. Even if you never intend on building a robot, but want to learn about "things" and "being handy" you will finish this book with dozens of practical technical skills that you never had before. This book is unquestionably one of my best non-fiction book purchases, and gets a prime spot on my bookshelf because I will refer back to it often.

My experience working through the book (sort of). A lot of good stuff for someone like me, who is new to robots, but not so new to programming. Here's my experience as far as I got, chapter by chapter. 1. I tried but failed with ubuntu. The install went fine but the system just froze all the time. So I just stuck with the debian install that was there, doing the appropriate upgrades. For the most part, I don't think it's worth it to switch. I did create a partitioned SD card, and mounted it on /home (after a mv /home /home1). This was probably unnecessary, since my BBB came with 4GB, which is certainly enough for the stuff in this book. 2. I just stuck to the Python part, which worked fine. 3. I never managed to get a microphone that worked properly (I tried 3 different ones and 2 difference usb-to-audio adapters). I'm planning to solve this with bluetooth. In the meanwhile, the speaker stuff worked fine with one of those cheap keychain models. 4. worked as per book, with a Logitech HD 720p. 5. I did get the Magician Chassis, just for the wheels and motors. It seemed too small to get all the stuff on there, so I went for a couple of 8x10 Lexan sheets. The hard part was making angle brackets with the right hole spacing to accommodate the holes in the motor gearboxes. I used 1.5x1.5 aluminum angle bars cut pretty small. I got the Pololu simple motor controllers. Their software didn't install, in fact some of the dependencies didn't install, but I was able to get the Python program working. The instability he refers to in the book was really due to bugs in the code. I'll post my version later. That's as far as I went in the book. I'm planning add an arm and do some more advanced image processing, so most of the rest of the book is not for me. I do appreciate that he wrote this - it helped me ramp up very quickly. After two weeks (including waiting time for parts!) I have something is untethered and will walk around the room based on my commands as typed from a Mac ssh session into that rcrobot.py, slightly modified.

This book accomplishes something rare: It's straight-forward for beginners and yet detail-rich for experts. I really liked the pace and depth. The material is organized in a way that makes it easy to jump to a topic of interest, which makes it a useful reference book. With plenty of new information, it's worth a read from the beginning. The thing that surprised me is that when I built one the projects (the Arduino robot), the instructions were actually complete and correct! (I didn't have to make the usual leaps or go through frustrating trials typical for most hardware/software/builder instructions.) As a bonus, the jokes and personal asides are pretty entertaining. You can tell the author has really lived with his subject. I highly recommend it.

This book is a masterpiece of detail. From basic shop techniques in mechanical fabrication, to soldering techniques, to explaining the "IF" statement, to programming microcontrollers, to power transistor interfaces for microcontrollers this book has it all. If you are a mechanic, the electrical interface, motor and software information will be a hit. If you are an experienced programmer the information on building mechanical devices will be invaluable. I bought the book to gain insight into computer / mechanical device interfacing - but I got a lot more than I hoped. A total novice should be able to build, program and run interesting and relatively inexpensive robots with the projects detailed in the book.

A lot of the robot projects from the 3rd edition were removed. Apparently they were replaced with more programming oriented projects. This was a disappointment for me because I wanted the instructions for building a "heavy duty 6 legged walker" which I had remembered from the 3rd edition. Imagine my surprise when I crack this book open and its not there. :( I see no good reason why the book could not have just gotten thicker. Retain the old projects, and add in the new stuff. To be fair though, there are some newer updated looking robotics projects that seem neat. Also this book will be a BLAST for anyone who wants to get into robot programming. A lot of the component and material descriptions are still present which is also nice. Simply put, if you get a good deal on the 3rd edition, I'd say skip this one and save some money.

I can see why other reviewers refer to this book as THE starting point for budding robot enthusiasts. It is very well written, and easy to understand. The author clearly is passionate about his craft, and keen to share his knowledge with his readers. While I have not delved into actually building my robot yet, I really enjoy reading, and re-reading sections of this book. Every idea, every explanation feels very accessible. Now all i have to do is find the time to jump in and start my creation. If you're interested in building your own robot, this book is the perfect place to start.

This book has lots of basics in it. If you are new to robotics, this will really help you out. It also gives some good resources on where to find things. The internet is good for that but sometimes, it takes too long to search for things so I appreciate the resources listed. If you already know the basics, this isn't going to help much. The examples are pretty specific too so they can only be used in a certain number of applications. If you're unsure if this is advanced enough, rent it at the library first. If it's for a kid who has never played with robots, I thin this would be great. For an adult, it can be a little boring, like me, I was thinking, "how long till we get to the good stuff?" Well, it's a while. It's worth keeping but I probably would have bought another book that was more advanced if I had seen more of what it had first.

I found this book to be a great starting place, for me, as a beginner. It had everything I needed to produce some fun, hobby style robots. The book explained the principles and tools I need to build and design. I found the various walk-throughs in the book to be nice, basic and easy to follow, I also found it was possible to take the information presented by the book and design something more advanced.

This is probably one of the best intro books to robotics. The book will take the capable reader from the very beginning and in no time will provide him with the tools that will help him create robots. The book covers basic electronics, mechanic component and good review of micro controllers. Highly recommended!

Simple intro, lots of examples .. would like to see a follow-on

"Robot Builder's Bonanza" est une source très complète d'informations pour se documenter sur la construction de robots ludiques. Tout est décrit : de la construction mécanique, aux divers composants nécessaires à la réalisation, ainsi que les montages électroniques et la programmation de divers microcontroleurs. De nombreux exemples, ainsi qu'un site web complémentent ce livre. On trouve les robots mus par roues et par articulations. Bien que ce soit écrit en Américain, tout se comprend aisément (niveau scolaire d'anglais) avec les nombreuses illustrations et shémas. Je recommande donc ce livre qui est une véritable bible pour débuter en robotique de loisir.

Nice

Definitely a great book to start off with Robotics.