The First Robot

So after writing some random posts that mostly only I may understand, lets get down to some serious discussion on robotics. Now you need to understand that I am no expert in the field, I just love to work in it. And this I believe may help those who are interested to start working in robotics as I will usually write about the basic things that I come across.



Now the way I see it, there are two types of people trying to make robots. First are the ones who want to go and participate in the different technical festivals in the country, and the second those who work in the research field, trying to develop new and better methods to implement robotics in the industry rather than compete against other enthusiasts. Now I am not being biased here. I actually believe that one must first live out the phase where the prize money is all you care for. But soon you may realize that it is a bit heavy on the wallet. So that is when a lot of people either turn to some other events, or decide to utilize the things learnt so far for development. Now after this HUGE talk about 'the way I see it' we come to the topic that is meant for the latter kind of people: The First Robot !

DO NOT TRY TO PLAN AND MAKE A STATE OF THE ART HUMANOID OR AN AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE THAT CAN DRIVE YOU AROUND. It is all about a simple thing. FUNDAMENTALS. If your fundamentals don't work, the big things are not going to happen. One of the mistakes I made, but lets not go into that for now. So how to get that piece of material that you work on and call it a robot later ?? Some people may say we start with a chassis and wheels and stuff. But I would not agree. Start with something you understand all too well. Start with a TOY. Yes. Sounds weird. But the remote controlled cars and planes you see are weight balanced, the motors are nicely attached to gears, the RF transmission circuit is available to use. BREAK IT UP. The best way to make or test an autonomous robot is to run the code on your laptop or a microcontroller / processor and interface it with the RF circuit of the robot (remote control). If you can make a robot follow a path a webcam interfaced to your laptop sees, then it should not be THAT difficult to make the DARPA car everyone wants to make nowadays. Obviously greater challenges lie ahead, but all this can be done with a little bit of interest, dedication and google :)