Customer Reviews

PDA Robotics

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

 

 

I would like to thank the author for helping me to create an Infrared bridge between an electonic project that I have been working on and my PDA ! I searched the net and the library for this information to no avail.

I found all the information useful and will apply some of the design concepts and software in my next project.

I must counter the last review by janek243. The book contains no more than perhaps 5% microchip specs ! The specs that are included help explain the components used and tie the project together. The subject was more than just 'touched on', the author has created a great working piece of technology.

Looking forward to more of Doug Williams' work.

Like janek243, I was disappointed that so much of the book
was copied (seemingly verbatim) from technical specs on-line,
though the sources didn't seem to be referenced. It's fairly
obvious where these sections start and end, because they lack
the typos and grammatical problems of much of the rest of
the book.

Despite its flaws, I recommend it to anyone who, like me,
is interested in interfacing their iPaq (or Palm) with hardware.
The book has given me several pointers to other material and
manufacturer websites. I'm glad I bought it; I just wish it
had a higher signal-to-noise ratio.

Following discussions with the author, I have amended this review.

As a University Lecturer, I was disappointed with this book
because it contains large sections of material copied from
datasheets and web sites without proper references. We try to
teach our students to be ethical, and not to simply cut and
paste from the Internet without references. The author assures
me that permission was obtained from Microsoft, Intel,
Microchip, Sharp, etc. to re-publish their material.

It is not a text for a beginner if you want to learn about
robotics or how to design your own circuits and program
embedded systems. For instance, it assumes that you can already
program in C.

However, it does contain detailed instructions for building a
robot that can be controlled using the Infra Red port on a PDA.
If you don't mind making your own circuit board, then this
might be the book for you, but you really need some basic
background in electronics and computers if you intend to build
this robot. If you treat it as a recipe, and try to learn from
the exercise, then you might find it useful.

An interesting, informative and easy to follow project. I like the fact that it touches on micro controllers, PalmOS and Windows operating systems.

The electronics were explained in enough detail that I had no problem following the circuit and should be able to create it without difficulty.

I'm a PalmOS and Pocket PC enthusiast and found the code snippets for creating the IrDA (infrared) and 802.11b links to be a great resource. I'm going to the site referenced in the book to download the entire software projects...

I was interested in electronics and robotics so I purchased this book. The flow of the book is a little choppy but I must say that the information helped me win high school science fairs and I am now studying electrical engineering at university! The support site is great and the author was very helpful. The well writen software projects I downloaded from the support site helped my dive into the project and allowed me to get a solid understanding of PalmOS, windows CE development, circuit fabrication and PIC programming. The project does required that you purchase a PIC programmer but if you are to pursue a career in robotics it is well worth it! Thank You!

This has some great ideas in it! I am using the concepts outlined to put an iPAQ onto a Lynxmotion H2Stealth Walker robot kit.

The author does a great job showing how to interface a robot to a Palm or iPAQ, using Infrared instead of a serial port, which has lots of advantages (I'm going to use the serial port for a CMU Camera).

As a bonus, when I had further questions, I went to the author's web site, and he quickly answered my questions. He was VERY helpful!

I highly recommend this book! At under [money amount], it's a steal!

I really had high expectations for this book. I was looking for something that would provide an alternative to the PPRK-based "Ultimate Palm Robot" book. And this book does provide what appears to be a workable, if not very robust robot design that you can wirelessly link your Palm or WinCE PDA to. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the book is cut-and-paste data sheets - including some of the marketeering hype. This makes for a very disjointed read since the style of the book changes with each new data sheet and many concepts and terms are not explained well. As a result, this would probably be a difficult book for someone new to robotics. I'm still not sure that the schematic for the robot in this book was worth $20 - $30. I would suggest "Programming and Customizing the OOPIC Controller" by Dennis Clark as an alternative to this book. The OOPIC is easy to work with and the chapter describing interfacing the OOPIC to a Palm device is very well written.

I found this book to be a very valuable reference for interfacing with hand held computers. It covers alot of information from interfacing the motor controllers and IrDA chip to the Micro controller and all the software needed to tie everything together.

The last review from JAN SZYMANSKI is incorrect, the book contains no more than 5 to 10% Microschip specifications and those that are included are very helpful in understanding how all the electronics fit together AND I think the subject was more than 'slightly touched on'. It got me going on this subject and I now have a deeper understanding of PalmOS, WIN CE, Microchip programming and the fundamentals of Robotics! Did JAN do more than gloss over the book ?

The author does a good job of explaining the circuit, electronics and the software source code included. I contacted the author on the site mentioned in the book as well and he e-mailed me the entire source code projects (they are available on the site for download as well) that compiled and linked without any problems. This saved me months of researching, code crunching and electronic design to get a fairly complicated undertaking working flawlessly.

Thanks Again.

Not a bad book for beginners. If you expect bit more than a reprint of Microchip specifications (about 50% of the book) you can be dissapointed however.
Why should I pay for something which can be freely downloaded from manufacturers website (like product specs.)?
As well it is much better to include specifications and source code on CD, but then what is left from over 200 pages will be only enough for one good technical article.
It is sad that such a good subject was only slightly touched in this book, but if you think that geting a taste only is enough for you, than go and buy this book and see for yourself.

I had high expectations for this book, assuming that it would start out slow, with basic information, then pick up from there. This is far from the truth. The book slams you from the sixth page (literally) with seemingly irrelevant information about computer architecture, accompanied with confusing diagrams. As all of the other reviewers mentioned, the book is littered with a copied mismatch of pictures and diagrams. The book does not follow a logical thought process, nor is any of the information practical. Unless you have a BSCmpE, don't buy this book.