[Robotgroup] Book: Robotics Primer plus XO Q.

[Betty Dingus]

Turns out I bought Physical Computing at Half Price Books in October  
of 2006 according to the receipt/bookmark. Didn't tackle it much, but  
would love to with some help. I'm making becoming tech savvier my new  
year's resolution (along with bass guitar, dieting, blogging,  
mastering our XO laptops, etc. etc.). The return to the robot room  
has begun. As soon as my mom vacates it - it's also our guest room.

On Dec 16, 2007, at 3:42 PM, Marvin Niebuhr wrote:

> 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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>>
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