21–30 of 106 posts
Has anybody tried Crunch Lab's HackPack? It seems it could be quite well suited for this purpose -- they claim to make it straight forward to go beyond the kit, and they've certainly taken some of the right steps in that direction.
Edit - fixed autocorrect
https://i.imgur.com/9YIHT9P.jpeg
Modern SBCs are decently powerful and run for long enough off a standard drone LiPo pack that you can fairly easily build yourself a solid little platform to learn and experiment with different controller approaches. Stereo cams, LiDAR modules, etc. are also readily available at a quality level that is decent enough.
You'll quickly realize the amount of work needed to bring any of the more advanced approaches to a productization level, but a "I implemented enough of this to get the principle" mini-Boston-Dynamics is in reach of the hobbyist.
In fact, the programming craft aspect of all of this is relatively simple. Basic implementations are typically not architecturally complex or a lot of sloc. You'll find that it's more about learning some control theory, and it'll also get you into machine learning.
I strongly recommend taking the generalist approach. It makes you a much better engineer in the long run. I had a friend call me up enraged one day. He got woken up at 1am and ordered to drive across the state to get a site back up and running because his hardware was broken and the very expensive software team was sitting around wasting their time. So he got to the site at three or four AM and found that the room full of software engineers, three PhDs among them, didn't understand that BOTH of the battery terminals needed to be connected. Yes, batteries in fact have a positive and a negative. And these people were each getting paid twice as much as him. He left that company and became hardware leadership at a much better company, thank goodness. My point is, super-specializing in the most profitable hyper-niche right off the bat is going to make you a very mediocre robotics engineer who might be successful in the short term, but might find yourself unemployed in a few years when we find a better modality to replace your hyper-niche. Specialists win the sprints, generalists win the marathons.
Do this course https://github.com/henki-robotics/robotics_essentials_ros2 Totally free, don't need to buy anything just a computer. I've been designing electrical hardware for robots for the last 4 years for a big corporation and I can tell you, the fun and money is in the software but having another skill is awesome. Robotics is a place where multiple fields converge and if you find a good team they will help you to…
This could change if there are breakthroughs in AI, which is not unlikely in the coming few years. Any thoughts on that?
It's not that hard to get started! I make robots like this (that one's just to enter the wiring stage) using alu extrusion beams, some 3D printing, off-the-shelf servos and SBCs: https://i.imgur.com/9YIHT9P.jpeg Modern SBCs are decently powerful and run for long enough off a standard drone LiPo pack that you can fairly easily build yourself a solid little platform to learn and experiment with different controller app…
I'm not joking, but some of those Lego robotics kits can work just fine for getting your feet wet. Yes, even if they are made for kids. When I started out, it was with microcontrollers, breadboards, sensors, actuators. And even though it was in college, I do wish I had just played around with more high-level stuff first.
The lego mindstorms kits were great for this. Nice and modular for the hardware, but still real enough to teach you lessons like sometimes identical motors don't work the same way.
Do this course https://github.com/henki-robotics/robotics_essentials_ros2 Totally free, don't need to buy anything just a computer. I've been designing electrical hardware for robots for the last 4 years for a big corporation and I can tell you, the fun and money is in the software but having another skill is awesome. Robotics is a place where multiple fields converge and if you find a good team they will help you to…
How programming of RP2040 or RP2350 could translate to platforms used commercially like Siemens SIMATIC and others?
It's not that hard to get started! I make robots like this (that one's just to enter the wiring stage) using alu extrusion beams, some 3D printing, off-the-shelf servos and SBCs: https://i.imgur.com/9YIHT9P.jpeg Modern SBCs are decently powerful and run for long enough off a standard drone LiPo pack that you can fairly easily build yourself a solid little platform to learn and experiment with different controller app…
Your workbench is so much cleaner than mine!
For starter, I always recommend a RC car with an Arduino (or cheaper equivalents).
Following can be had for less than - SG90 servo motor - 28BYJ-48 stepper motor - ULN2003 driver board - UNO R3 Controller Board (Elegoo) - RC car chasis/3D printed chasis
Hack around, add sensors, cameras etc. Next would be to build a robotic arm.
