Customer Reviews

Intermediate Robot Building

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Since there is no description what-so-ever about this book, let me copy the back cover and table of contents. This way I won't leave something out and run off on a tangent and run out of room for this review. I hope you appreciate my soon-to-be cramped fingers...

Back Cover:
"For readers of `Robot Building for Beginners', welcome to the next level. Intermediate Robot Building offers the kind of real-world knowledge that only an experienced robot builder can offer-the kind of knowledge beginners usually have to learn through mistakes. In this book, you'll learn the value of a rovot heartbeat and the purpose of the wavy lines in photocells. You'll find out what electronic part you should sand. You'll discover how a well-placed switch can help a robot avoid obstacles better than a pair of feelers. And you'll avoid mistakes that can cause a capacitor to explode.
Want a robot that can explore rooms, follow lines, or battle opponents in mini-sumo? This book presents step-by-step instructions and circuit and part descriptions so that you can build the robot featured in this book or apply the modules to your own robot designs.
Finally, you'll find the complete schematics for Roundabout, a room explorer that requires no programming and uses only off-the-shelf electronics. With Roundabout, you'll use many of the same techniques used by professional robotics engineers-and you'll experience many of the same challenges and joys they feel when a robot `comes to life.'
Experience the next level of challenges with Intermediate Robot Building."

Table of Contents:
Ch 1: Assembling a Modular Robot
*Building Modules
*Getting comfortable with machining
*Putting it all together
*Applying parts and techniques to other robots
Ch 2: Comparing Two Types of Homemade Motor Couples and Common Errors to Avoid
*Comparing two homeade coupler technologies
*Identifying desired results in coupler drill holes along with common errors + effects
*Getting ready to make a solid-rod coupler
Ch 3: Making a Fixture and Drilling Solid Rods for a Coupler
*Gathering Tools and Parts
*Preparing lengths of solid rod for the couplers
*Making a coupler fixture
*Getting the money shot
*Drilling the motor-shaft and Lego axle coupler holes
*Examining the coupler so far
Ch 4: Finishing the Solid-Rod Motor Coupler
*Installing the coupler setscrew
*Adding the Lego Axle
Ch 5: Building a Motor Inside a Wheel
*Encountering danger: bent shafts ahead
*Making a hub-adapter coupler
Ch 6: Understanding the Standards and Setup for Electronic Experiments
*Reading schematics
*Using solderless breadboards
*Understanding oscilloscope traces
*Riding the bandwagon of modern electronics
Ch 7: Creating a Linear Voltage-Regulated Power Supply
*Understanding Voltage Regulators
*Understanding Linear Voltage-Regulated Power Supplies
*Heading into Optimizations
Ch 8: Making Robot Power Supply Improvements
*Bulking up the input and output capacitors
*Adding voodoo capacitors
*Sprinkling with bypass/decoupling capacitors
*Preventing damage from short circuits or overcurrent
*Preventing damage from overvoltage in a regulated circuit
*Putting it all together for a robust robot power supply
Ch 9: Driving Miss Motor
*Why a motor driver
*Demonstrating the four modes of a motor
*Driving simply with a single transistor
*Putting the NPN and PNP motor drivers together
*The classic bipolar H-Bridge
*Interfacing with the high side
*Mastering motor control
Ch 10: Driving Mister Motor
*Driving motors with MOSFETs
*Driving motors with Chips
*Evaluating motor drivers
Ch 11: Creating an Infrared Modulated Obstacle, Opponent, and Wall Detector
*Detecting Modulated infrared with a popular module, or, another reason to hog the remote control
*Expanding the detection circuit to include an LED indicator
*Completing the reflector detector circuit
Ch 12: Fine-Tuning the Reflector Detector
*Tuning in 38 kHz
*Limitations of the reflector detector
*Getting ready for a practical robot application
Ch 13: Roundabout Robot!
*Examining Roundabout
*Roundabout's Circuitry
*Building Roundabout's Body
*Summarizing Roundabout
Ch 14: Test Driving Roundabout
*Preparing for the test drive
*Preparing the robot and correcting minor glitches
*Evaluating Roundabout's performance
*Getting Stuck
Ch 15: If I only Had a Brain
*Considering the Motorola KX8 Microcontroller as an example
*Comparing a microcontroller to a logic chip
*Programming a microcontroller
*Exploring common microcontroller features
*Choosing a microcontroller
*Graduating your robot
Ch 16: Building Roundabout's Daughterboard
*Converting to a two-story configuration
*Intercepting signals: meeting the new boss
*Expanding functionality
*Upgrading a robot
Ch 17: Adding the Floor Sensor Module
*Sensing brightness with photoresistors
*Sensing brightness with a photodiode IC
*Following a line
*Competing in Robot Sumo!!!
*Expanding Possibilities
Ch 18: Cooking Up Some Robot Stew
*Making Music
*Scaling Up
*Mounting Motors
*Roaming the Solar Terrain
*Standing in a Robot's Shoes for awhile

This book is a Staple for any Robot Enthusiast's bookshelf

David Cook does it again! His first book Robot Building for Beginners has become my bible for the fundamentals of building robots. When searching college websites, I've even seen classes created around it (if you don't believe me do a google search). Needless to say, I've had extremely high expectations and anticipations for his next work. Put it this way. I received his book at 10:30am this morning in the mail at work. I started reading it during lunch and then asked my boss for the rest of the day off so I could finish it. I AM STOKED!

This book takes you by the hand and gives you step-by-step- instructions as well as part and circuit descriptions to build modules for the robot "Roundabout." I always read a robot book first before I start building-I like to know what I'm in for. Most books will give some description and direction, but David Cook leaves nothing unanswered. I believe it's pointless to assemble some parts by following directions and have no clue the electronics/mechanics behind it. The whole point is to eventually have the knowledge to build your own. At this level, you will not find a better book. I'm speaking as an owner of 19 robot books. Most books didn't warrant the project for me. After a read (or at least about 3 reads in my case for complete retention), you will be able to explain your parts, how they work together, as well as the reasons behind the choices to include that particular part, as apposed to another, in the first place. I'm ordering my parts for the robot tomorrow, but after my first reading I can already explain about 60% of everything about this robot. Now if only I could remember that much in my night classes...

Well, that's my raving review of the book. Please see my review below for what you'll get when you buy the book. And since I didn't want to leave anything out...

This book (and it's prequel, Robot Building for Beginners by the same author) is extraordinarily good. It picks up where the previous book (which is the best book in existence for the beginning roboticist, in my opinion) leaves off, getting into details of milling parts, microcontroller circuits, and such. A truly wonderful book. If you read the previous book, and then read this book, you will have an excellent grounding in robotics, and have a very entertaining time doing it. Highly recommended!

This book is wonderfully different from most robot books in that it doesn't skim through assembly instructions on half a dozen scrap robots that the author thinks you want to imitate. Instead, this author seems to understand that I want to build my own unique robot, so his book concentrates on building tips, electrical modules, and what-to-look-for in certain parts.

For example, the infrared obstacle and wall detector in chapters 11 and 12 is standalone, has complete schematics and part numbers, and is covered in such great detail that it's going to be easy for me to incorporate it into any of my robot ideas. There are plenty of examples of robot power supplies and motor drivers as well.

If you want pretty pictures and brief descriptions of various robots to get your creative juices flowing, surf the internet. But if you want complete details on how to actually build something, get this book!

Very cool narrative aimed straight at the hardcore tinkerer. For the restless kid inside you, that really digged hands on experience, and who perhaps is left neglected by all this software/web browsing.

There are sections of the book that could have been written in the 1970s and 1980s. Like chapters 9 and 10, Driving Miss Motor and Driving Mister Motor. The descriptions of the discrete components and putting them together on a breadboard in something like an npn or pnp motor driver circuit seem so much from that period. Nothing wrong about this, I might add. Much of the progress in electronics has been at ever decreasing dimensions of logic circuitry. But at the macroscopic level, where you might have to supply enough power to move a robot, for instance, much of the lessons of then are still state of the art.

Cook provides here a grand tour of many tasks you might need to perform to make a nifty robot. Quite aside from whic, it also gives you a good exposure to analog electronics and electromechanical design.

I am a novice robot builder. I appreciate the thoroughness and practical approach of this book. I have understood and implemented several circuit ideas from this excellent book.

Books like this are refreshingly down-to-earth after reading the usual college text books.

David Cook, builds advanced skills in autonomous robot construction in an excellently designed text following on (but not necessarily depending upon) his excellent "Robot Building for Beginners". This outstanding tutorial assumes some basic skills in robot construction, and then describes and exquisitely illustrates the development of Machining, Mechanical, Electronic, and Microcontroller Modules around a "Roundabout Robot" Project. Mr. Cook builds out independently the skills used in each phase or area of robot construction around a suggested unified project. The Robot Constructor Hobbyist can rely on standard pre-planned modules for those aspects of robot construction that are of lessor interest while choosing to advance his/her skills in particular areas that are described in detail for the "Roundabouts" construction, gaining Machine Shop Skills, Electronic Design and Construction toolsets, or advanced skills in developing the Microcontroller "Brains" of a Robot. While I could just admire and learn from his explicit instructions and high-quality gray-scale photographs of Machining Practice, I do feel qualified to comment on his "Brains" and Microcontroller module entitled "If I Only Had A Brain". In this section he proceeds lightly with the details of Physical Computing and Basic Microcontroller skills that can easily be gathered from other books and online references, he provides an excellent guide to choosing between discrete Digital Logic chips and Microcontrollers, excellent heuristics in choosing a controller or Microcomputer chip, and advanced means of troubleshooting and making failsafe the Microcontroller Brain of a Robot using Watchdog Timers and Heartbeat Displays. I know of no other Hobbyist or "Professional" Robotics book that provides this level of understanding of the Intermediate and Advanced Use of Microcontrollers and Microcomputers.

This book is the Ultimate Skill Builder for the Robotics Hobbyist who wishes to advance beyond the simplest robot projects.

This review is by my ten year old Robot fanatic:

This book introduces the most common parts (in a beginner type robot) step by step by defining them properly. So far I have made a line following robot almost from scratch. This book sets you up with many different options. It starts with safety and where to obtain parts then moving on to introducing parts. After that you are shown how to setup a solder-less breadboard.

David Cook's second book is an excellent sequel to the first. Like the
first, this is a hobbyist book aimed at those interested in table top
robotics. It documents his exploration in robotics using easy to get
parts for most hobbyists, and does good job of explaining the basic
theory to the layperson. A basic understanding of electronics and
mechanics is useful to take away as much as possible from the book,
but with just the skills learned in the first book, it is easy to copy
his simple designs.

By no means is this an advanced book. Those with some background in
electronics or computer science may find the book a bit lacking on the
theory behind the designs, but it hits it's target demographic quite
well. Anyone who has built a small robot or is familiar with circuits
will have no trouble following even the more advanced topics in this
book.

He includes a brief overview of the basic parts of any robot. The
first section includes several examples on the mechanical construction
of a robot. Many of the examples include mechanical parts custom
fabricated on a mechanical mill, though sources for similar parts are
included. He then discusses power supply and isolation concepts. A
large part of the book discusses various approaches of brushed DC
motor driving using NPN transistors or MOSFETs, and is probably one of
the more valuable sections. There is a short section on sensor design
but the examples presented in detail are somewhat sparse. Finally, a
section on interfacing a controller (purpose built or programmable) to
the hardware is gone over. This section is by far the most lacking, as
this book is more focused on the hardware implementation.

Overall, the book presents a good guide to getting a simple tabletop
robot up and running, but doesn't discuss much of the more advanced
topics a budding roboticist might find useful. This is by no means a
software book, but by the time you're done with the examples in this
book, you'll have a good platform for mobile robot programming.

I just finished putting my two cents in for David Cook's first book. Both his books are so great that I wanted to review this one as well (I have never felt like I had to review a book before). I have really nothing to add to Nick Cherney's review of "Intermediate Robot Building (see below). He is right on the money. But I did want to give it my 5 stars. So here they are.