Robotic Explorations: A Hands-On Introduction to Engineering (Hardcover)

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Product Description

Written by one of the founders of the famous MIT "6270" Lego Robotic design Competition, Robotic Explorations: A Hands-On Introduction to Engineering engages students in hands-on robot building, emphasizing technological systems of all kinds--electrical, mechanical, and computational. A first text for students as well as reference for practitioners, the book provides all the practical information needed to create an introductory freshman-level laboratory class. This versatile and pioneering book sparks the imagination and leads the reader into many thought-provoking and challenging engineering situations. Robotic Explorations includes: *An introduction to the field of engineering design, accessible to students at multiple undergraduate levels, with concepts relevant to electrical, mechanical, and software systems. *Principles of mechanical design, illustrated using the catalog of parts available in the LEGO Technic(R) system. *Step-by-step instructions for building "My First Robot," a tutorial for beginning explorations of control. *Applications of various control strategies including traditional proportional/derivative feedback, behavioral robotics, and hierarchical control.*Designs and application ideas for robotic sensors. *Project guidelines for designing robot contests to facilitate students' learning of particular engineering concepts. *Documentation for using educational robotics technology developed at MIT--Handy Board control hardware and Interactive C software.

From the Back Cover

Written by one of the founders of the famous MIT "6270" Lego Robotic design Competition, Robotic Explorations: A Hands-On Introduction to Engineering engages students in hands-on robot building, emphasizing technological systems of all kinds—electrical, mechanical, and computational. A first text for students as well as reference for practitioners, the book provides all the practical information needed to create an introductory freshman-level laboratory class. This versatile and pioneering book sparks the imagination and leads the reader into many thought-provoking and challenging engineering situations.

Robotic Explorations includes:

• An introduction to the field of engineering design, accessible to students at multiple undergraduate levels, with concepts relevant to electrical, mechanical, and software systems.
• Principles of mechanical design, illustrated using the catalog of parts available in the LEGO Technic® system.
• Step-by-step instructions for building "My First Robot," a tutorial for beginning explorations of control.
• Applications of various control strategies including traditional proportional/derivative feedback, behavioral robotics, and hierarchical control.
• Designs and application ideas for robotic sensors.
• Project guidelines for designing robot contests to facilitate students' learning of particular engineering concepts.
• Documentation for using educational robotics technology developed at MIT—Handy Board control hardware and Interactive C software.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 462 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall (December 17, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130895687
• ISBN-13: 978-0130895684
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 8.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #658,989 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good introduction to robotics, May 21, 2001

By	Barbara Nostrand "Barbara Nostrand" (Syracuse, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The basic content of this book is excellent. It provides a readily accessible introduction to the principles of engineering. This book could easily be used as the text for a first year course in a unified engineering curriculum including Computer Science. The one flaw with this book is that it appears to have been rushed out by the publisher. Many of the page references are to the wrong pages and some of the pictures are rather blurry. Finally, the instructions for creating and downloading ICB files to incorporate assembly language modules for interrupt side programming and similar purposes needs to be reworked in a future edition. I hope that a future edition will also have a chapter on electrical design and construction techniques to compliment the chapter on mechanical techniques. I also look forward to a third chapter on sensing and possibly a second chapter on control theory. Regardless, this is overall an excellent book and should be acquired by anyone interested in small robots.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars MIT 6.270 in book form, February 11, 2001

By	M. Koss (Hunts Point, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I just finished participating in the MIT 6.270 Autonomous Robot Competition. This book really pulls together everything you need to understand how to build a robot from Lego parts, and interface it to the real world using a variety of sensors and actuators (aka motors). There is so much to be learned by actually BUILDING a robot - this is a great book to help you dig into your own project. You can order the same hardware and software used in the MIT class off the internet as well.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Taking the next step, April 27, 2002

By	Erika Mitchell (E. Calais, VT USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This book presents an introduction to various aspects of robot building and planning. It is written as an undergraduate textbook, and contains numerous exercises throughout the text. The book assumes that students and other readers will have access to Handyboards and LEGO Technic equipment, as well as a desktop PC and hobbyist-level soldering equipment. The book walks the reader through analyzing a Handyboard, how to use it, how to build custom sensors and motors, and how to write programs in assembly language. All of this information would be very useful to first-year engineering students as it would help them put theory from many of their other classes into practice. Nevertheless, most of the tasks and programs described in the book could actually be built with a standard LEGO RCX brick. On the other hand, a person who masters the material in this book would be able to take advantage of the extra sensors and motors that the Handyboard supports and build far more sophisticated robots than would be possible with LEGO Mindstorms equipment. Anyone who builds robots using LEGO equipment, whether with a Handyboard or an RCX, will find information in this book about Braitenberg vehicles, LEGO design, control theory, and robotics contests quite useful. The introduction to Assembly language in Appendix A is also presented in an easily accessible style.