[Robotgroup] Book: Robotics Primer plus XO Q.

[Marvin Niebuhr]

Sign me up for David's study group on the Phy. Comp.  book.  Marvin

On Dec 16, 2007, at 2:04 PM, David Nunez wrote:

> 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
>>
>> -- 
>> Vern Graner CNE/CNA/SSE    | "If the network is down, then you're
>> Senior Systems Engineer    | obviously incompetent so why are we
>> Texas Information Services | paying you? Of course, if the network
>> http://www.txis.com        | is up, then we obviously don't need
>> Austin Office 512 328-8947 | you, so why are we paying you?" ©VLG
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