Hello,
First Thank you for hosting such a cool site totally devoted to robotics development. This place kicks butt. I learned about it while researching a blog-entry to help clarify (from a very "beginner" perspective) some understanding of actuators as they pertain to robotics (
i.e.).
I am a programmer who has written a neural network development environment, and a companion book. Though it would be nice to sell a few copies of the book to people who might enjoy it, for me, finding better ways to do machine hosted neural networks is entirely a hobby, and a labor of love (which is a euphemism for "they are an over-the-top obsession").
One of the conclusions reached in the book, is that neural networks will need to interact with our complex external world if they are ever going to advance beyond their current overly-abstract implementations.
That, of course, means... Robots!
I have a little electronics knowledge, but am completely out of my league when it comes to Robots. There is a great deal to learn from you, and so I'll likely be a lurker here for the most part. I promise to try to help out when/if I can though (programming issues, neural networks, ...even biological and brain-mind correlation stuff, though that is probably a bit off topic (?) ).
Background: I spent some time in younger days as an electronics experimenter/hobbyist, which led to the interest in programming (C, assembly, embedded, C/++ on platforms, and lately Internet stuff using mostly perl). It has been a very long time since the breadboards and the 10-Mhz Heathkit oscilloscope have been dusted off though.
Thanks again for having such a great community of like minded people here who love robotics
-L
P.S. If you are interested in reviewing the book, or know anyone who is, please let me know via the PM facility or e-mail. A limited number of reviewers copies are available for those who have some influence.
