[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How do I learn robotics in 2025?
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Ask HN: How do I learn robotics in 2025?
i wish to make something. it should be more accessible than ever
and the next thing but only the tech giants seem to capture most of
the conversation.
Author : srijansriv
Score : 244 points
Date : 2025-06-02 12:58 UTC (10 hours ago)
| beklein wrote:
| If you want to make something, have a look at
| https://huggingface.co/lerobot For hardware check:
| https://github.com/TheRobotStudio/SO-ARM100
|
| There will be a world wide hackathon in two weeks time, no better
| way to get started and get to know some people:
| https://huggingface.co/LeRobot-worldwide-hackathon
| deepinsand wrote:
| If you're in NYC, we'll be hosting folks at the Betaworks
| offices for the 6/14-6/15 hackathon: https://lu.ma/z3z9ipke
| r2_pilot wrote:
| Start by deciding its purpose. The form will follow the purpose.
| If you know electrical engineering, you won't make as many
| mistakes as I have. If you know mechanical engineering, you won't
| take as long to design the components as it took me. If you're a
| competent programmer, you won't be as slow integrating the
| hardware into a cohesive whole as I am. If you've read The Design
| of Everyday Things, you're ahead of the curve in terms of making
| it accessible.
| lukeinator42 wrote:
| A good starting point is learning to use ROS https://ros.org/.
| Once you learn ROS you can interact with/use a wide variety of
| robots. Robotics is a fairly multidisciplinary field though, so
| it really depends on what area of robotics you are interested in.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| 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.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| 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.
| neuronexmachina wrote:
| Although the Mindstorms line is discontinued, nowadays
| there's the Lego SPIKE Prime (it's marketed more towards
| classrooms). Like the Mindstorms EV3, you can program it with
| either a visual block language or MicroPython.
| fusionadvocate wrote:
| Robotics is more accessible than ever. The tech is here to build
| almost anything you want. Dream big! We can now buy cameras for a
| couple dollars, microphone arrays, sensors, motors and drivers.
| 3D printers are everywhere, stock components also available.
|
| Or 'manage your expectations', download ROS and build another
| mediocre turtle bot powered by some Nvidia Teraflop chip (if they
| allow you to boot their sdk), and spend a year learning
| "abstractions" defined by other people for other projects.
| worldsayshi wrote:
| While inspiring, it does sound like there needs to be a less
| steep learning curve to get anywhere. Small incremental steps
| and all that.
| artofcode wrote:
| Depending on your goals, micromouse could be a good starting
| point as well. Look up to veritasium video if you want to get
| inspired.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| 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.
| jsperson wrote:
| I tried it. First kit was speced with cheap parts that didn't
| really work. Got a replacement kit - same thing. Overall a
| really disappointing experience. I cancelled and bought a 3D
| printer, which has been great fun.
|
| Edit - fixed autocorrect
| borjah wrote:
| 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 grow.
|
| Embedded is the adjacent field after you complete the course.
| Maybe something like zephyr project.
|
| If you want to get you feet wet with mechanical. Buy a A1 mini
| and play with onshape (www.onshape.com) to design your first
| pieces, supports for the motors or the board, try create you own
| gripper.
|
| As for the electrical engineering, is the one with most pitfalls
| and the most expensive. A wrong voltage will release the magical
| smoke and is another 30$ for a board. Tread carefully. Start with
| the RP2040 or the RP2350, they are cheap and well documented.
| This skill will evolve hand by hand with the embedded coding.
| Start small. Learn about H-bridge and brushed motors before doing
| the jump to the bigboys and FOC control with brushless. Get a
| cheap soldering iron. If you can, a clone of the JBC C245 tips.
| Is the most versatile and you can find stuff in alie xpress for
| 45 or 50$ and would be similar to the tools you will find in the
| field without breaking the bank.
|
| Search for ROS meetups. I could point you to some depending where
| in the world you are.
|
| And above all, it will be a long journey. Don't dispear, do at
| your own time but don't forget the objective.
| varispeed wrote:
| How programming of RP2040 or RP2350 could translate to
| platforms used commercially like Siemens SIMATIC and others?
| schlauerfox wrote:
| Microcontrollers and PLC are historically different fields
| that have some overlap as the fields converge somewhat. PLC
| come from relay logic and so learning Ladder Logic and
| playing with a cheaper Automation Direct PLC might be good if
| you're looking to do control systems like industrial machines
| and those robotics. RPi series micros are good to learn
| embedded electronics, servo controls and Realtime OS.
| Computer Engineering and Control System Engineering are
| treated differently even in the California State Engineering
| License Exams, so they tend to be different paths but the
| skills have some overlap. My degree was in computer
| engineering and didn't cover any PLC, but I contract and PLC
| comes up a lot in one-off things that need to be reliable.
| borjah wrote:
| Yeah. As some has said already PLC are more oriented to
| robotic arms in factories etc, where space is not a premium.
| Robots like anymal from anybotics, spot from boston dynamics
| or the unidog from unitree to name a few don't use PLC at all
| due to lack of space. Also energy efficiency, mcu at most
| will push less than a watt to move something complex, a motor
| control for the FOC, I mentioned earlier.
|
| I worked for the past 4 years in HP siteprint.The main
| problem was developing all to fit inside a pelican case that
| you could check in on a plane. The smallest PLC was almost
| the full internal volume of the robot. That's why I said
| microcontrollers, more ready available to experiment at home,
| faaaaaaaar more cheaper and those two, very well documented.
| STM32 in europe is the big player but is harder to get into,
| the documentation tends to be cahotic.
| dotancohen wrote:
| If you've managed to collect some good documentation, links
| appreciated! Or PDFs (my Gmail username is the same as my
| HN username) if inclined.
|
| Thank you!
| amelius wrote:
| > the fun and money is in the software
|
| This could change if there are breakthroughs in AI, which is
| not unlikely in the coming few years. Any thoughts on that?
| borjah wrote:
| Mmmm true, but will not replace a good coder. The software
| team has been experimenting with AI. Is useful and can guide
| you to do a Proof of concept fast but if you want to start
| doing very specific custom stuff all crumbles down fast.
|
| In the next years? Yeah I see resolving path planning without
| a doubt or reverse kinematics or object recognition, for
| example. AI will be another tool, one you have to learn to
| use it. But replacing a full software guy... I don't see it,
| to be honest. I see it more like in the novel Beyond the Blue
| Event Horizon. The first chapters explains AI as the AI
| agents that are being rolling out nowdays. But they will be
| more like what a junior engineer is to a senior, more than
| replacing a full team of engineers.
| lpzimm wrote:
| AI trivializes coding: the complexity and scope of robot
| software will increase.
|
| Robotics-oriented ML trivializes current robot design
| problems: demand for robotics engineers increases, the
| projects do cooler things but the day-to-day gets less
| interesting.
|
| Both: this is probably just AGI right?
| beau_g wrote:
| All we really need for the robotics AI revolution is to
| deploy many tens of thousands of well built, cheap, reliable
| robots sold at a profit that customers get tons of utility
| out of, get petabytes of data back from them while complying
| with data privacy regs, train a model on this data on a few
| thousand H200s, and then deploy that model back to the
| robots, repeating the cycle every few weeks. The rest will be
| easy.
| sabareesh wrote:
| Interesting one thing that is more satisfying with robotics is
| that because you can see your creations in real world
| borjah wrote:
| That is sooooooo much true. The pride and joy to see the
| robot moving, no words can describe the feeling!
| korse wrote:
| I'm in the field and I disagree with the initial direction of
| this post. You aren't going to 'learn robotics' in a meaningful
| manner by checking the boxes in a online ROS2 course.
|
| Robotics is a compound discipline which pairs mechanical and
| electrical engineering knowledge with mathematics and software
| development. In order to get meaningful practice in all of
| these areas, I would recommend re-implementing a robot vacuum
| from 'scratch'.
|
| The actual vacuum part is non-essential, as you're really
| trying to implement the famous 'turtle' robot and experience
| all the design steps/compromises/challenges first hand. As a
| goal, aim for autonomous navigation around your home that works
| equivalently to a cheap 'throwaway' robo-vac.
|
| Keep in mind you are surrounded by robotics. Most passenger
| vehicles, consumer drones, micro-mobility devices and modern
| construction equipment are 'robots in varying degrees of
| disguise'. Practical knowledge regarding any of these systems
| transfers well if you know where to apply it.
| morkalork wrote:
| Where would you recommend someone to start from a more data-
| sciencey background, algorithms like VSLAM look interesting
| to mess around with but building a whole robot just to do so
| seems daunting.
| nightski wrote:
| This feels like the "How to Draw an Owl" meme all over again.
| Just create a self navigating robot from scratch...
| hommelix wrote:
| > As for the electrical engineering, is the one with most
| pitfalls and the most expensive. A wrong voltage will release
| the magical smoke and is another 30$ for a board. Tread
| carefully.
|
| I enjoyed reading "Exploring Beaglebone" by Derek Molloy a few
| years ago, because the book has sections "how to destroy your
| beaglebone" and "how to interface with electronics". The
| website seems broken. The book's ISBN is 978-1-118-93512-5.
| Some of the recommendations there (voltage clamping circuit on
| the 1.8 V analog inputs) can save your board.
| drekipus wrote:
| > And above all, it will be a long journey. Don't dispear, do
| at your own time but don't forget the objective.
|
| My biggest issue with robotics is that I don't see the point in
| any objective.
|
| Building a cool robot feels like it's just a toy to me, and I
| don't know how to get around that feeling. I studied
| mechatronics at uni and spent a long time learning on my own in
| addition.
|
| Robotics for business is almost a cliff, very hard to get into
| and make something that works reliably at a reasonable cost,
| from a solo developer point of view
| pixl97 wrote:
| >very hard to get into and make something that works reliably
| at a reasonable cost, from a solo developer point of view
|
| I mean yes, otherwise they'd be even more robotic stuff
| wandering about
|
| In products they have the trade off triangle where you can
| pick things like fast-cheap-good, pick any two.
|
| In robots it's cheap-reliable-featureful pick any one.
|
| The problem with the term 'cool' is it sets no boundaries.
| Those constraints limit your costs and scope. That's the hard
| part for most people when they think about cool.
|
| And reliable is more of a time factor (+effort). QA on
| products takes a _massive_ amount of time and effort to
| figure out what is not reliable.
| mellosouls wrote:
| (Ask HN:)
|
| Noted not just for pedantry but you may get more attention.
| GaggiX wrote:
| You can buy an old Roomba and cannibalize it for your own
| project, it's a start.
|
| This is an example: https://youtu.be/mTpkV7xZln0
| amacneil wrote:
| Robotics is definitely getting more accessible! But keep in mind
| it's a whole different world from traditional web or desktop
| software development, so don't be surprised by the relatively
| steep learning curve. Keep at it though!
|
| - Buy a small robot kit from Amazon or a local reseller. Yahboom
| make some good robot toy car kits. Hugging Face have the open
| source SO-ARM101 that plenty of companies manufacture and sell
| now. Expect to spend about $250 USD including a Jetson Nano for a
| good kit, up to $1000 USD if you want some more sensors
|
| - If you can't afford a real robot, play around with simulators
| like Isaac Sim and Mujoco
|
| - Check out LeRobot, excellent framework for ML robotics from
| Hugging Face
|
| - Learn the basics of ROS (pubsub), even if you don't end up
| using it, a lot of the industry jargon and design patterns come
| from ROS so it helps to understand it. Think of ROS like Ruby on
| Rails, it's a heavyweight batteries-included framework with lots
| of opinions.
|
| - ROS does have some nice libraries for manipulation (MoveIt) and
| navigation (Nav2) using more classical (non-ML) methods
|
| - Leverage AI tools such as ChatGPT and Cursor when you get
| stuck, it's a lot faster than Googling when you're just getting
| started and don't even know the right term to search for.
|
| - (Shameless plug) Check out two tools I'm working on: mcap.dev
| for logging and foxglove.dev for visualization
| moffkalast wrote:
| Maybe ROS is the way to get started in robotics and for AGVs
| it's probably the most resourced thing one could learn.
|
| But that is really only for AGVs. Once you get into the air,
| it's all Mavlink (always has been), ASVs and AUVs still run
| MOOS, and robotic arms are far more likely to use ABB studio
| than Moveit and the research is going towards LeRobot with end-
| to-end control, not classical methods. IoT systems are mostly
| Home Assistant, and well, some just use MQTT directly instead.
|
| ROS is probably not as ubiquitous as us ROS devs would like to
| believe, what one should learn really depends on the field one
| wants to be in.
| carlosdp wrote:
| I highly recommend starting with the SO-ARM101 and the LeRobot
| tutorial. They're super cheap, its insanely quick to get
| started, and you can even buy pre-made kits like at
| https://partabot.com . It's the "Hello World" of robotics now,
| imo.
|
| Don't bother with a Jetson Nano, you don't need that to get
| started, and by the time you need that you'll know a lot
| already. You can just drive the robot from your laptop!
|
| Getting to training your own VLA fine-tuned model is a super
| quick and easy process. You can see examples of other people
| completing the tutorial and uploading their training/evaluation
| datasets here (shameless plug for my thing):
| https://app.destroyrobots.com
|
| I wouldn't bother much with ROS at first tbh. It'll bog you
| down, and startups are moving toward using other approaches
| that are more developer friendly, like Rust-based embedded.
|
| You can go far with a robot connected to USB though!
| csullivan107 wrote:
| There are many ways to start with a more academic knowledge of
| robotics. Courses, ROS, Programs etc. Just picking one is a fine
| start and you will learn something, but you may not have fun or
| appreciate the context for what you are learning, which makes it
| hard to care.
|
| It also depends on what you're trying to learn. Programming?
| control? electronics? mechanism design? There are many different
| aspects that require their own expertise. I personally think of a
| roboticist as someone that can be functional in all the
| disciplines and bring it all together. Some one that can build a
| robot from scratch.
|
| This advice is targeted towards someone starting in robotics with
| an emphasis on building a totally custom robot. You are doing the
| whole thing from scratch, no kit. (kits are super useful, but I
| personally like building everything and making hardware that
| works for me). In my eyes, if you haven't built it in hardware,
| it probably isn't a robot.
|
| As a research roboticist, my best advice is forget Learning it
| all up front and just start building. You will probably have
| strengths and weaknesses, but robotics is a very multi-
| disciplinary problem and at the start, requires some head banging
| in what we like to call integration hell. Just Trying to build
| something does a couple things. It gets you acquainted with the
| interaction of all aspects (mechanical, electrical, software) of
| a robot and how they interact. Most importantly it gives you
| context for sll the things you learn later on. Build something,
| come across a problem, and google/brute force your way to a
| solution. You will stumble across context relevant resources and
| lessons in the moment. Especially at the start, a more "formal"
| education is too broad and comprehensive for the curious
| roboticist.
|
| My simple advice is to just come up with something simple and
| SEND IT!
|
| For mechanical - Onshape for 3D design (free tier) and a bambu A1
| mini 3d printer can get you building anything you want for <$400.
| A couple nights of CAD tutorials will get you started. Hell you
| can even start with cardboard and hot glue if this is cost/time
| prohibitive.
|
| For electronics - Browse www.adafruit.com or www.sparkfun.com for
| sensors and microcontroller boards. They both support QWICC
| connections which makes getting sensors plugged in and running
| super easy for a beginner. For computation and control a basic
| Arduino Uno or one of the adafruit feathers will do just fine.
| Don't get caught up in the internet debate on what the best
| microcontroller/single board computer is. The best robot is one
| that works and it is VERY easy to get in over your head in this
| realm and fall into the premature optimization track. Better to
| get something working that under performs than to never build at
| all.
|
| For software - Most lower level robotics uses c++, which I think
| scares people. It is mostly because it is one level above
| hardware. Arduino/common libraries take care of all the hard
| stuff and you don't have to worry about large scale things like
| garbage collection, memory leaks, or efficient code off the bat.
| The websites above have libraries, examples, and tutorials for
| every sensor. Even a non programmer type can smush the example
| code together in a functional way and get something up and
| running.
|
| As you try to build you will learn and get more complicated.
| Robotics is so vast and large its best to focus on learning the
| skill you need at the time. But my main advice is just go build
| the thing and the learning resources/skills will present
| themselves when they are needed. Otherwise it is just too much to
| take a more planned approach.
| kypro wrote:
| There's 3 core parts:
|
| - Electronics (batteries, resistors, capacitors, etc) - Robotic
| hardware (motors, sensors, microcontrollers, etc) - Software
|
| The electronics learning is always going to apply to start there
| if you need to, then depending on your goals the hardware and
| software will vary.
|
| For simple DIY projects I'd start with getting an Arduino or
| Arduino compatible board and just play around with building
| things with sensors, LEDs, motors, etc. You'll find lots of kits
| and resources online for simple Arduino projects.
|
| More complex projects are probably going to need to be Linux-
| based (AI, machine vision, etc). In which case you might want to
| look at building something with a mini PC, Raspberry Pi, NVIDIA
| Jetson.
|
| These days robotics is super accessible, but can cost a bit
| depending on what you want to do... That said, most of the time
| you'll find there are cheap ways to build POCs to validate your
| ideas first.
| storus wrote:
| If you want to understand how it works, take first Stanford's
| CS223A and then MIT's 6.832 Underactuated Robotics courses. They
| have lectures online as well. Udacity's Self-driving Car
| Nanodegree might be a good idea after those two.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| I love to create an robotic arm like cyberpunk 2077
| light_hue_1 wrote:
| Everyone is jumping the gun here. You just haven't told us
| enough.
|
| How much time do you have? How much do you know about hardware
| and software? What do you want to do? How much money do you want
| to invest? What do you want to learn?
|
| The path forward changes entirely depending on the answers to
| these questions.
| sho_hn wrote:
| 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 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.
| jeffrafter wrote:
| Your workbench is so much cleaner than mine!
| sho_hn wrote:
| It's a small inner-city apartment and it's my little corner
| in the shared office room with the better half, that
| motivates me to keep it tidy :)
| aiwejrlaiwj wrote:
| A really top-tier robotics engineer is going to be a generalist
| across mechanical, electrical, and several software domains, and
| then also a specialist, deep expert in one or two of those. So
| I'd recommend doing a bit of everything then picking a specialty
| to learn in depth. Build a really simple kit robot and then
| program it to do simple stuff using ROS. Write a few ROS nodes
| from scratch to do something simple, things that existing ROS
| nodes already do. Then learn why the STL ROS options are (most
| likely) better than yours.
|
| 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.
| jmpman wrote:
| If you're an engineer, go volunteer for a First Robotics team,
| and advise high schoolers on your area of expertise.
| kens wrote:
| And if you're in high school, join a First Robotics team. (In
| First Robotics, teams build a moderately large robot that can
| zip around a field, grabbing things and shooting balls for
| instance. It's like a competitive sport but with robots
| competing. The robots are controlled by drivers, but can also
| act autonomously for more points. The task is different each
| year, with sub-tasks of varying levels of difficulty, so teams
| with widely different skill levels can take part: some robots
| are very simple while others are amazingly complicated. It's a
| great way for high schoolers to learn engineering skills,
| anything from programming to mechanical engineering.)
| johnrgrace wrote:
| I would say for starting a first robotics lego league is going
| to be easier to access because they build a smaller robot out
| of legos, plus the "season" starts in the Fall vs. January for
| First robotics league.
|
| I've coached a First team that has qualified to go to worlds
| the last four years and been on the Einstein field once in that
| time. I think you'd learn a few things - robots are built to
| solve problems and the most technically complex and advanced
| robots don't always solve problem better than simple elegant
| designs. - Robots involve multiple skills and usually get built
| by teams where members are specialists in specific fields. Some
| people will understand all of the robot sub systems but
| elteto wrote:
| I was thinking I'd love to do that when my son gets older.
| Any tips for a first time coach?
| _tqr3 wrote:
| Rather than watching videos or reading on the internet, I think
| its worth it to get your hands dirty.
|
| For starter, I always recommend a RC car with an Arduino (or
| cheaper equivalents).
|
| Following can be had for less than <$100
|
| - 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.
| aerophilic wrote:
| Honestly, and I feel like a promoter... but get either a hackpack
| from Mark Rober or as otherwise mentioned, mindstorms from LEGO.
|
| Crunch labs: https://www.crunchlabs.com/
|
| As someone in the industry (I literally can call myself a Robot
| Master having a Masters Degree in Robotics), these simple "kid
| kits" are phenomenal. When you first start out, the hardest part
| is knowing the hardware is actually going to do what you tell it
| to do. Simplifying the mechanical engineering/electrical
| engineering so you can immediately create real world actions
| makes a huge difference in giving you motivation to keep going.
|
| Once you have the basics in place and you understand mechanisms,
| sensors, and some algorithms, you can move on to other parts of
| robotics.
|
| However, keep in mind robotics is really about system thinking...
| you have to understand trades between sensing, thinking, and
| acting. But most importantly you have to remember you are dealing
| with the real world... you can't as easily write a unit test and
| know that a particular actuator will behave _exactly_ the same
| way every time.
| zerr wrote:
| Related: what about Embedded Systems?
| agcat wrote:
| The best way to learn is just by running small experiments and
| being curious about the field.
|
| Just a few weeks ago, along with my partner i started this Sunday
| experiment of building and learning robotics as a software
| engineer.
|
| We ordered a one hand robotic arm with orin nvidia gpu to start
| running experiments.
|
| to commit and make it a habit, we also started documenting our
| learnings and experience.. if this motivates you you can check it
| out here - https://youtu.be/pAwkl6zd0ws
| olalonde wrote:
| A common beginner project is to build a line following robot. You
| get to learn a bit about electronics, microcontroller
| programming, sensors, actuators, etc. e.g.
| https://projecthub.arduino.cc/lee_curiosity/building-a-line-...
| chasd00 wrote:
| Adafruit is your friend. Get one of their feather boards, an imu
| breakout, motor controller and then a simple robot chassis +
| motors from Amazon. Code in circuit python and save yourself the
| build chain and debug hell that is traditional embedded
| programming. Circuitpython / micropython is great, well
| supported, and makes embedded programming more fun. You'll
| encounter the haters see it as training wheels but trust me, it's
| great.
|
| Edit: you could take a more top down approach and get like an
| ardupilot, use it in rover mode, and just really learn how to
| configure and use it to its full potential which is pretty far
| out there. There's also a lua scripting capability last time I
| checked.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| All the responses, most of which I've seen are great, are very
| software focused. I get it, makes sense for HN. There is a whole
| world of hardware in this space. Learning how to design
| mechanisms that work, and last. Custom motors, controllers,
| actuators, hardware.
|
| For that there are some great points of entry now. Places like
| pololu robotics, Adafruit, sparkfun, etc. are all as good as ever
| and are great jumping off points into building and eventually
| designing hardware.
| nogridbag wrote:
| I've just started this journey. I always wanted to get into
| electronics and robotics, but instead went the software route.
| I've picked up an Arduino and microbit over the years, but they
| sit collecting dust.
|
| It may sound silly, but I asked Gemini to recommend a learning
| plan and it came up with a detailed plan along with time
| estimates in months. The first step is reading and going through
| all the exercises in Make Electronics (third edition) which is
| very hands on.
| ActorNightly wrote:
| This is by far one of the best ways to learn IMO
|
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/573090/Stormworks_Build_a...
|
| The idea of that game is that you build vehicles to do rescues
| and deal with natural disasters. While there is a career mode
| where you gain currency that you can spend on parts and fuel,
| most people who play that game play it in sandbox mode where you
| essentially design vehicles to do certain things, while also
| configuring the game to chose missions it generates. For example,
| you can make it so you only have to deal with land rescue
| missions or only fight enemy ai.
|
| The building system is VERY in depth. While you don't have to
| worry about structural strength, you do have to keep things in
| mind like part placement, CG location, internal volume for
| buoyancy for ships. Then you get to propulsion, which you have to
| build out of components - the game has a fairly indepth internal
| combustion engine simulator where you build custom engines, and
| have to make sure they are fed with adequate fuel, air, and
| cooled appropriately. You can do jet engines, you can do nuclear,
| you can do full electric, and so on.
|
| Then you have to build systems to do missions - for example, to
| transport a container you have to build a crane to be able to
| pick it up.
|
| Finally, the game features a microcontroller system which is the
| bread and butter of doing cool things. There is a bunch of
| sensors that can read data (GPS, laser distance, pitch, roll,
| heading, radar, e.t.c), which you can route into a
| microcontroller, and do math either with logic blocks or Lua
| code, and thats how you build automation. You will get very
| familiar with things like PID controller tuning, trigonometry
| math (for things like distance sensing), state machine coding
| practices, and other things that are all applicable to the real
| world.
| babuloseo wrote:
| No one here mentioned to get a 3D printer but get a 3D Printer
| asap.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Yes, if you can get okay at printing, the friction from idea to
| implementation dissolves quite a bit. If you're building POCs,
| it doesn't matter than this gear won't work be durable or that
| chassis is ugly. Having it in hand for pennies means you'll
| actually build your idea. It's much like using packages in
| software. Maybe they aren't perfect fits for what you're
| building, but they get you close enough. You can refine later
| once you know the system works. The gap between idea and
| implementation is so dramatically reduced that it doesn't
| matter.
| spiralcoaster wrote:
| Right, so instead of getting involved with the basics or
| foundations of robotics, the OP should spend a lot of time and
| money investing in a 3D printer, learning the nuances of 3D
| printing, and ... for what exactly?
| breakds wrote:
| My suggestion
|
| 1. Start by learning a simulation tool, e.g. Mujoco (open source)
| or Isaac Sim. 2. Learn basics of optimal control and
| reinforcement learning, reproduce papers/ideas in the simulation.
| 3. Get your hands dirty on a cheap robot, and try deploy your
| trained model on it. For mobility and manipulation. Unitree
| Go1/Go2 for mobility, and robotic arms for manipulation.
| bsoles wrote:
| When I took the robotics course in grad school, we spent so much
| time on inverse kinematics and other complex math. It was pretty
| intense and gave me the perception that robotics was pretty
| difficult.
|
| Yet, today, people easily build simple robots using a few rc
| servos and an Arduino. Somehow kinematics is not really essential
| if you just want to build simple robotic toys. The pedagogy of
| robotics courses could have been so much better...
| okanat wrote:
| Many robotics tasks can be solved by linear motors and
| grippers. Not everybody needs to make 6 DoF arms. Nor they need
| machine-learning enhanced optimal control. Grad schools prepare
| you for the basics of the hardest possible systems.
|
| On the engineering side the number of difficult problems with
| robotics is enormous. Even the simplest systems will fail
| pretty badly outside lab. No two robots will work the same. As
| a grad student those are the things you learn on top of IK at
| work. So if you get employed for designing actual 6+ DoF
| systems and missing the theoretical stuff you'll be way behind.
|
| However, for self teaching and hobby stuff, just making a
| simple robot work reliably is still a difficult task with lots
| of learning potential. It may not cover complex arms but you
| may actually gain knowledge to solve the engineering part of
| the problems which is a huge boost for theories.
| glouwbug wrote:
| In all honesty I'd try and model a 2d 3-link arm in software with
| forward and inverse kinematics. Then I'd model the inertia of the
| bars, and model DC motors to apply a torque to the bar
| interconnects. I'd then model PID controllers for each motor to
| smoothly move the arm. I'd then move to 3D. Once the physics is
| modelled you'll find speccing the motors, solidworks, motor
| drivers, and MCUs relatively straightforward if you have some
| basics in electronics.
|
| The fundamentals of robotics is in the math; think control
| theory. Don't over emphasize the surface level like ROS,
| arduinos, and Lego kits. Those are implementation details
| datameta wrote:
| Build your own (small, diy) robot. Practical applications are the
| primary method of learning imo.
| dragontamer wrote:
| From the electronics side, the path towards control theory is a
| lot of math (signals and systems, Fourier transforms, transfer
| functions, feedback and oscillations, compensation circuits)
| ultimately leading up to the student solving the inverted
| pendulum problem sometimes in early Masters degree region or
| maybe the advanced student Bachelor's degree.
|
| I'm not entirely sure how to make that more 'accessible'. It's
| like, spend the next 5 years of your life mastering difficult
| math and electronics so that the sensors can be integrated into
| feedback that stabilizes a motor system.
|
| I guess you can cheat and use servos for a lot of this (where an
| EE already solved many feedback loop issues). But if you ever
| need to build your own sensor+motor solution you'd get stuck if
| you didn't know the math.
|
| -------
|
| Making simple controls without relying upon feedback sensors is
| likely the goal, you can do a lot with that. But then do your
| best to avoid the Masters level demons that plague this problem
| set.
|
| Maybe learn PID controller theory and if that isn't enough for
| your problems, give up and try a different design. PID is simple
| enough that you won't need years of math to learn, but it's very
| adhoc to configure and not always the best methodology to use.
|
| Better than nothing though.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| It's incredibly easy but for some reason seems hard
|
| But no matter what you need an actual physical robot I have never
| once seen anyone actually transition into robotics without them
| having made the commitment of spending $100s or $1000s on a
| capable robot. Very capable robots are in that range at this
| point.
|
| 1.Figure out what you want the robot to do. This is the hardest
| part, cause it requires constraining your desires considerably
|
| 2. Figure out how you want to make it do that. Do you want a
| deterministic robot? Do you want a robot that uses inference?
|
| 3. Then buy the robot that can do the physical action. If your
| task is to move groceries from your car into the house, you have
| much different requirements than if its a linear actuator
| flipping a static switch
|
| 4. Choose your robotic actuation path: Dedicated embedded
| controller (FPGA, PLC), controller coupled with another switch,
| autopilot etc...
|
| Test, iterate, test....
| imtringued wrote:
| It's not more accessible than ever. If you want to make it in
| robotics, you're going to have to read research papers and
| preferably have attended as many robotics related courses during
| university as possible. The hobbyist scene is big, but the vast
| majority of robots are basically fancy toys and almost no one
| ever goes beyond simple PID. The problem is that robotics is
| clustered around industrial robots and academia with nothing in-
| between. Unless you have the necessary background, you will most
| likely be stuck scraping the surface simply because you're not
| aware of the most recent developments in those areas.
| hugs wrote:
| 1) Get a 3D printer (or access to one). Or visit your local art
| supply store (for structural basswood) and hardware store (for
| nuts and bolts).
|
| 2) Get an electronics starter kit. (Adafruit or SparkFun are good
| places to start looking.)
|
| 3) Buy/borrow the book "Practical Electronics for Inventors". You
| don't need to read it cover to cover, but it's very useful.
| (Realistically, though, an LLM is probably good enough to explain
| basic concepts and/or help you pick parts these days.)
|
| 4) Build a toy robot with parts you printed (or purchased) and
| parts from the electronics kit.
|
| 5) Once you've built the toy robot, make something bigger! (or
| the existing one better!)
|
| 6) Optional: Find someone to buy your toy robot so you can have
| the funds to design and build your next one.
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