[Robotgroup] Book: Robotics Primer plus XO Q.

[David Nunez]

I have Physical Computing (and Making things Talk, for that matter).

HIGHLY recommend Physical Computing for those interested in making  
things go (as opposed to having a deep understanding of WHY things  
are going).

You're not going to get a EE degree off of it, but you'll get some  
functional building blocks to make things work and get things done.

As a matter of fact, the entire approach seems to be: "What are you  
trying to accomplish?  How can you do that w/o letting overly  
complicated technology get in the way?"  Breadth, not depth.  PICs  
and Stamps are both among the technology covered.

Caveat (and this is sad because it's not that old): The book is  
already a bit  dated in some areas.

My favorite section is actually the introduction, where they talk  
about general approaches and philosophy towards physical computing.   
(where "physical computing" is the best phrase they could come up  
with to describe this weird world of hacking, robots, and geekery art  
we're all doing).

The newer book, Making Things Talk is NOT a beginner book, IMHO, but  
it is far more current and touches on some really interesting and  
hackable technology (ex. Bluetooth, GPS, network communication etc)  
where there is lots of room to innovate.

I'd actually think we should do a study group, following the chapters  
in Physical Computing and end up not being tied down to any  
particular platform.

I'll take it a step further and (gulp) volunteer to help organize  
that next year.

Dorkbot was wanting to do workshops and hands-on things for 2008,  
anyway, but I'm starting to think that encouraging dorkbot attendees  
to come to Robot Group SIG meetings may be the way to go.


On Dec 16, 2007, at 12:42 PM, Vern Graner wrote:

> Eric Lundquist wrote:
>> It looks like it might be a good general introduction to
>> robotics. Certainly the author seems eminently qualified
>> to speak on the subject.
>>
>> I especially liked the hacked Roomba driving around with
>> a copy of the book.
>
> I wonder how it compares to the "Physical Computing" book by Dan O  
> Sullivan:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/ytyzn5
>
> It seemed an OK primer on how to get things started. Although, the WAM
> kit seems to be a good beginning too... :)
>
> Vern
>
> -- 
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