Need to study/make my first robot!

[Snip3r_bow]

Hey there,
It's been a long time since I started to love Robotic, and now it's the time to start:
I'd love to learn more aboue robotics, maybe from a great book or PDF, and possibly to get a KIT to start with and build my first robot, I might even start with a drone (quadcopter) but I'm still not sure, what do you think? Any help? Cheap places where to buy stuff?

Any information you know about Robotic and how to start are very well accepted!
Thanks for your time, see ya soon!

[FIFO]

    Robotics covers a wide range of fields such as electronics, mechanics, and software. This makes it lots of fun to build robots, but it also makes it difficult. I don't want to discourage you, but I would suggest that you start with something simpler than a quadcopter to gain some knowledge and experience and then once you have the basics down, go for it!

    When I started robotics I knew nothing about electronics, mechanics or programing. I found a book at the library Robot Building for Beginners by David Cook which taught me the basics of electronics and mechanics. After reading the book I was able to construct a line following robot. If you are learning robotics, then I would highly recommend this book. It explains things is an easy to understand manner and has saved me from many pitfalls.

    One thing the book did not go into was microcontrollers. Microcontrollers are single chip computers that you can program to control your robot. After building the line following robot I learned how to program an Arduino board. An Arduino board is a microcontroller development board that allows you to easily  program the microcontroller from your computer. After learning how to use the Arduino I was able to make a robot that would navigate a room with sonar. There are many other microcontrollers and microcontroller development board available such as the basic stamp or the pic microcontrollers, however I have found the Arduino to be more than adequate.

    There are also many useful tutorials about robotics on this website such as the 50 Dollar Robot tutorial, the sensors tutorial, the battery tutorial and many more.

    I hope that this been of some use to you and has answered some of your questions. If you have any more specific questions I will do my best to answer them.

[Snip3r_bow]

Thanks a lot man!
You got one thing I was really looking for: a specific book to start with: thank you!
Then you told me some tips about microcontrollers (and some extra explanations about them, even if I already know them, that was useful!) and some tutorials to look at.

This was what I was seeking for, thanks!

If you then have somewhere to buy stuff on and would like to share it, that would be awesome, but that's next, for now: thank you for answering so fast!
See ya soon

[FIFO]

If you then have somewhere to buy stuff on and would like to share it, that would be awesome...

    I would suggest Digikey and Jameco Electronics for general electronic components. Digikey has a much larger selection of parts, however Jameco Electronics is aimed more at hobbyist but still has very low prices and has some older components that are harder to find. Electronic Goldmine is a surplus electronic store that has many unusual components and sometimes is a good source for motors. Sparkfun is a good source for sensor modules, development boards, and motors. They also have lots of electronics tutorials including many on Arduino.

    When I have been building robots I have often come across the problem of mounting a wheel to a gearmotor. Sources like Ebay and Sparkfun can be useful for getting motors with mating wheels so that you do not have to make your own couplers.

    P.S. I forgot to mention in the last post that the man that wrote "Robot Building for Beginners", David Cook, has a website: http://www.robotroom.com. It contains many useful tutorials including ones that describe how to etch your own printed circuit boards.

[Snip3r_bow]

FIFO you're just awesome, you exactly got the point I was referring about in my last post: thanks for all those websites, they'll be very useful, and thanks to mention that website of David Cook but don't worry I did find it out on the bok itself

Have a great day,

-Snip

[DiegoChavez]

There have been many books that have helped me but probably the one that has helped me the most is called "The Robot Builders Bonanza" it talks about averthing you need to know to make a robot. You learn some things about electronics a lot about mechanics and everything in between. A good place to buy motors and mechanical parts would be Servocity.com They sell great stuff and I have at least one part from them in each one of my robots.

There is just on thing more, when I decided to get into robotics about 2 years ago I started reading about electronics and watching youtube videos on how to make a robot. Then when I decided to make my first robot I failed. But I learned more in that couple of weeks than what I learned in 6 monts of reaserching. I would encorage you to try and build something simple and cheap. I think the best way of learning robotics is by trying!

Good Luck,
Diego

[Snip3r_bow]

Yes Diego, you're definetely right! I'll finish this basic book about Robotics and then I'll get my hands dirty of bolts and circuits

[Ibaeni]

This year, I built a quadcopter for a senior project and it was an incredibly difficult project. You should look up a robotics kit/book to learn with. Of course the $50 robot is always a good way to learn. I might also suggest the book robot building for beginners. It works through how to build a line following robot and teaches all the basics of electronics and mechanical aspect.

[artbyrobot1]

I'd recommend planning out a project that sounds SUPER fun to you and then planning it in your mind using creativity and resources you already have available for free or cheap.  Research each problem you hit/roadblock you hit in your mind to solve that problem and continue in this way until you understand everything that needs to be done in the project fairly well in your mind.  Then make drawings and begin!  I'm doing my first robot now and I'm planning for it to be one of the most advanced humanoid robots to date in the world.  Why start with the toy car?