Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent fun - pure joy and enthusiasm!, January 8, 2004
This is a tremendously fun and engaging book. It is immediately compelling and never loses its way as it ploughs through a plethora of topics, introducing all the basic skills and resources needed to genuinely construct one's own hobby robots.The book begins with a fascinating history on the origins of robots leading through to robot kits available today (like Lego Mindstorms), as well as off-the-shelf robots (like Aibo). The book culminates in three hands-on projects involving building a walking coat hanger, animating an old computer mouse, and then a walking CD rack with an embedded microcontroller for brains, programmable by Visual Basic. These projects are all slightly zany and even off-the-wall but demonstrate solid techniques and show just how robotics is limited only by one's imagination. Best of all, they use as few commercial parts as possible, preferring to recycle household junk. This title is a delight to read; it is absorbing and highly entertaining. However, to my mind, its absolute greatest attribute is the sheer sense of fun and enthusiasm which radiates from the author. It's clear he has an enquiring mind and an almost childish fascination for robots. It's easy to imagine him longing for his very own R2D2! This pure sense of wonderment really comes out and is sure to infect even the most technophobic of readers. This is wonderfully remniscent of the "hacker" spirit possessed by all the greatest computer scientists and hobbyists who really strive to understand just how technology works, and how to develop it themselves. The book concludes with a detailed, annotated, list of books, magazines and Web sites that can be referred to for more information. Finally, it contains a 10% off voucher for a US based robot parts Web-store but fortunately for international readers the parts used throughout can be sourced from most any electronics or hobby supplier.
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30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
True to the phrase "absolute beginner's", October 4, 2003
Many people have an interest in robotics, but have a difficult time getting started. Even the simplest of robotics projects requires a wide range of basic skills, from how to solder connections to programming microprocessors. This book lives up to the title, in that it starts at the very beginning and steps you through how to build three simple robots.
In the first section, called robots.edu, a history of robots, some of the major players and some of the simple capabilities are described. The second section begins with a list of the tools and skills needed to build robots. As basic as you can go, this gives explicit details about how to start. Three simple robot projects are described in complete detail in the third section. All start with a list and photo of the parts needed to build the robot and a step-by-step building procedure to follow. The parts are easy to obtain and cheap, but if you are not the type to shop around, there is a link to a company called Solarbotics, where you can purchase a complete kit.
True to the meaning of the phrase, "absolute beginner", this book is a great place to start if you have the desire to build robots, but lack the skills and knowledge.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great projects for a beginner, September 7, 2004
I have been fascinated with robots ever since I was a little kid. When I was young, I would go to the library and check out books about robots. Most of these books talked about movie robots and then told about the many different kinds of robots that could be purchased commerically at the time. I loved to read through those books and imagine what it would be like to have my own robot. Years later, I have gotten the robotics bug again and I have been interested in building my own simple robot. I bought this book and I loved the history section. It told about the history of actual robotics and how various roboticists have influenced each other's work. It also talks about different approaches to tackling different problems. After covering the theory and history of robotics, the book tells you exactly what tools you need and what you need to get started with building 3 simple robots. He even has sections on the electronic components and how to solder. This book is really written for beginners! Each project helps you build a different kind of robot that with increasing complexity. The instructions seem very clear and the illustrations are very good too. The best thing about this book is the fact that there is a very active web forum where people can discuss their progress on the projects and the author has been very eager to help people that have questions.
Some other comments here have complained that the book's projects are not original or that there are missing parts. The author never claimed the projects to be original. He gives credit to the original designers and has made variations that make the projects more foolproof for beginners. He has built them all multiple times and provides original instructions that are very clear and easy to follow. He also has the active website (very unusual for a robot book in my experience) where you can ask questions and he can clarify anything that you have trouble with.
I highly recommend this book for anyone that wants to learn about the history of robotics to date or that wants to get started building their own robot.
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