 | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com | Loads of pictures and very frank discussion make this book a pleasure to read, and a real learning tool. The author gives lots of practical advice, some of which would be useful even to experienced tinkerers. It is very thorough. — Edward Chin, The Canadian Linux Users' Exchange Learning robotics by yourself isn't easy, but it helps when the encouragement comes from an expert who's spent years in the field. Not only does Author David Cook assist you in understanding the component parts of robot development, but he also presents valuable techniques that prepare you to achieve new discoveries on your own. Cook begins with the anatomy of a homemade robot and gives you the best advice on how to proceed successfully. General sources for tools and parts are provided in a consolidated list, and specific parts are recommended throughout the book. Also, basic safety precautions and essential measuring and numbering systems are promoted throughout. Specific tools and parts covered include digital multimeters, motors, wheels, resistors, LEDs, photoresistors, transistors, chips, gears, nut drivers, batteries, and more. Robot Building for Beginners is an inspiring book that provides an essential base of practical knowledge for anyone getting started in amateur robotics. |
Average Customer Rating:   Just what I've been looking for! I looked around quite a bit trying to find a robot building book that would take my 14 yr old through the process in a way he could understand. David Cook delivered perfectly. Every other book I looked at seemed either too childish, or alternately, assumed a solid background in electronics. Robot Building for Beginners, like Baby Bear's porridge, is just right!
I studied philosophy in college, so can offer my son no help in building robots. I've seen this book described as a swimming pool that's 5'x5' but 25' deep. That's pretty apt. I like the extensive chapter on components - what they are, how they work - neither my son nor I knew a resistor from a diode before. Also an entire chapter on safety was great from the concerned parent perspective.
The book is long, but covers a lot of ground with very little fluff. In 10 days my son had read up to the chapter where you start building your robot - he had absorbed a ton of information, built a few basic circuits and tested/troubleshot them with a multimeter. Now he's just waiting impatiently for me to set him up with the necessary components to start building (actually he's started scavenging components from dead/unused electronics he comes across; and I'm starting to fear for my DVD player).
I don't think you'll find a better starting point for a novice. Excellent Beginners Book On Building Robotics & Electronic Construction & Prototyping David Cook, an engineering manager at Motorola with 20 years of experience in software development, has written the ultimate beginner's book on the construction and troubleshooting of robots and all types of electronic construction. It is designed for the absolute beginner to practical electronic and basic mechanical construction by someone who like myself received an overly theoretical education. It can certainly also be mastered by interested high school student or teenage enthusiast. All phases of electronic construction and troubleshooting as well as a variety of mechanical and shop techniques are described and exquisitely illustrated by high-quality (black and white) photographs. While the book culminates and supplies all necessary information to construct a simple but fully autonomous line-following robot, I believe that the successfully achieved important objective of the book is to develop the range of electronic and mechanical skills necessary for further advancement in any robotic project and almost any electronic construction endeavor. To many books in this exciting and rapidly expanding field either provide step by step details of the construction of particular projects, or are largely theoretical in content.
By contrast, this clear and well illustrated beginners guide develops the skills and basic theoretical understanding of electronic construction and mechanics to achieve initial success and grow in knowledge with any robotic project and in a variety of hobbyist electronics. I would recommend it to any aspiring beginner in robotics and electronic construction as the basis mastering an exciting hobby or practical engineering pursuit.
--Ira Laefsky
MSE/MBA IT Consultant Robot Building I was surprised when my 11 year old started reading the book and liked it. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but if you have a budding mad scientist interested in robots, I would recommend the book. We got this book because we joined a robotics club. A teacher researched various books and decided this book was the best book for the club. Create a simple robot and lay down the foundations for future ones I am providing this feedback in the hope of guiding potential buyer's expectations about the goals of this book. After going through this book you will have:
1. a simple reflex robot (reflex in the sense that it reacts "naively' to detection of light). This is neither good nor bad, again it depends on your expectations. No coding will be involved and the robot cannot do much else
2. you will learn Ohms law and how it is applied in building this robot's circuit
3. you will learn about basic building blocks and how they work, diodes, resistors, comparators, photoresistors, etc
4. you will accumulate a collection of tools and materials that you can reuse
5. you will learn how to do soldering and machining of some parts
In my opinion this is a book for the long haul. If you want to get up and running really fast the author himself suggest going the Lego route or with other kits that you assemble together quickly. If you want to learn the basic principles and collect the necessary tools to build parts and/or whole robots it is a good place to start. Bare in mind it is a START. If you are serious about robot building you will ultimately gravitate in building parts and circuits based on skills and knowledge the author describes. The book takes you through a lot of basic skills and knowledge and it has a lot of illustrations, actually multiple per step, which I found invaluable.
So no fancy, intelligent robot here, just laying some serious foundations. Make sure that you visit the author's website and you look for the "sandwich" the robot being built. It will give you a lot of helpful information such as a shopping list for all the tools, components needed. One big concern is the cost involved. When all the tools and materials are purchased, we are talking about several hundred dollars. Yes most of them will be for materials and tools that you will use in other projects, if you are seriously committed in sticking with this as a hobby. If you are not, take the Lego or other kit route.
I hope this helps and I personally found quite rewarding being able to build the different parts myself and the robot. I already have David's intermediate book and I look forward to the next level of complexity. Great for more than just robots! I have been using First Robotics, VEX, and BotBall bots for quite a while now. Someone gave me this book for Christmas and I have to say that it is an amazing primer for anyone getting into robotics/electronics. Although it pertains to smaller robots, the information can be easily translated to any size. The authors tips and instructions are clear and dead on.
I particularly appreciated the electronics tips on how to use a multimeter. I cannot count how many times a student of mine have popped a multimeter because they were taking a resistance reading with the circuit activated. That is covered in the book though.
The author also suggests places to buy equipment and the book comes with a PCB (printed circuit board) which dramatically cuts down on the difficulty of the build and results in a clean awesome looking bot. |  |
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