Hey! I can relate exactly to where your'e coming from. I, some years ago, decided I wanted to get into building synths. I ended up getting a job at a pedal company and have spent more time learning to build and repair pedals than synths. I don't work there anymore, but it gave me a lot of perspective into the field as we also made euro-rack modules.

First up: I don't want to scare you off from this, but just want to give you a realistic perspective so that you go into this knowing what you are getting into. Making synths is hard and it's expensive. As far as electronic projects go, making a synthesizer is up there on the list. I've repaired powerplant turbine controller circuitboards that were simpler than some of the synths I've owned. This isn't to say, "don't do it!" but, expect to learn a lot of fundamental and intermediate stuff before you ever have something like a fully-featured synth that you built in your hands.

It's also expensive. A cheap synth prototype is going to cost a couple hundred bucks, easy, while a more fully-featured prototype could cost into the thousands to produce, and that's just to build one working prototype. If you want to make a run of products you're going to need money up front, and not a small amount. So, just be prepared for that inevitability.

One final note is that my perspective is broad (digital and analog) but is rooted in analog electronics because that's where I started. This isn't the only path you can take to get to where you want to go but honestly in my opinion, even if you're going to go mostly digital later, you need to understand analog.

If you have never messed with electronics much before I highly recommend the Make: Electronics book. I'm a hands-on person and this was the most effective book I found that let me study electronics fundamentals the way I wanted to; by making stuff! No matter which direction you go on (digital, analog, hybrid, DSP, SID, etc) you're going to want to know how to pick the right resistor, or how to pop an LED into a circuit, and this book will teach you that.

Solid follow-up books from there are Make: More Electronics, Practical Electronics for Inventors, How To Diagnose and Fix Everything Electronic, and The Art of Electronics. All of these books are good books that touch on different concepts you will find useful, so I encourage you to look through them and decide for yourself which of these interests you.

Around this same time, I'd encourage you to start getting into kits. Honestly, before you build anything synth, I'm going to recommend you build some pedals. Effects pedals are fun and rewarding to build without being too hard. Start with a distortion circuit and work your way up from there. Once you can build a delay pedal without freaking out, move on to euro-rack kits, or other synth kits. While you're building these kits, don't just build them, play with the circuits! Try swapping components where you think you can, or adding features. One of my first kits was a distortion pedal with a single knob, but by the time I was done tweaking on it it had five knobs and two toggle switches!

Once you're feeling somewhat comfortable with electronics, then you can dive into the holy grail of analog synth design: Make: Analog Synthesizers this amazing book was written by the brilliant Ray Wilson who recently passed away. His life's goal was to bring the art of building analog synths into the hands of anyone who wanted to learn, and there is no better place to receive his great wisdom than this book. You should also check out his website Music From Outer Space along the way, but the book covers so much more than his website.

If you make through most or all of those resources you are going to be well-equipped to take on a career in synth-building! I'm personally still on that last step (trying to find the time to tackle Make: Analog Synthesizers) but hope within the next year or two to get that under my belt and start diving in deep myself. It's been a fun journey of learning and discovery and I wouldn't trade the skills I've gained in electronics for much.

Hope this helps, good luck!

ah I see. Well you definitely are on the right track by doing mesurements while you are building. I am not really the right person to ask because Im still in the beginning stages but I also bought: Boylestad https://www.amazon.com/Introductory-Circuit-Analysis-Robert-Boylestad/dp/0133923606 (a much cheaper older version that I found for about $10 I think you are aware one nice thing about learning electronics from scratch is that the basics, the most important things, were discovered a long time ago so you can get a great wealth of information for very cheap....) This is pretty much, well like exactly what youd use if you took a college course on circuit analysis, much great information on the physics and basics of linear and non-linear circuits, it can be pretty dry though, but that is what you probably really need if you want to really "grok" what is going on in a circuit, i.e. using OHMs/Thienevin laws etc and Loop analysis, looking at the numbers from and finding missing values when you only have say the voltage and current etc
This one https://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Journey-Amplifiers-Randomicity/dp/1449344046/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=1P86DOCJID6WO&keywords=make+electronics+2nd+edition&qid=1557865653&s=books&sprefix=make+elec%2Cstripbooks%2C159&sr=1-1-spons&psc=1 which is definitely very good because it includes actual images of breadboards (which are not always intuitive even though very simple to impliment, really that has to do with human error, thats why its all about trying it out/getting yr hands dirty!) and some other stuff. I know there are a TON of people out there why swear by the Ray Wilson websites and books, I bought one and just have been into other things but when I get back into it I know I am going to go back to those Wilson projects...

Another REALLY awesome thing I just remembered: EveryCircuit App, super great becasue it shows live demonstration of signal flows...

You can try /r/electronics, /r/askelectronics, /r/EngineeringStudents, /r/engineering and /r/arduino too, in case this doesn't receive much attention. This is a pretty small subreddit, with very few subscribers. You'll have much more luck in those subreddits (the first two are very good for these types of questions).

This book would be perfect for you. Heck, I'm in my fourth year of electrical engineering, and I love that book. I'm sure you can find a free version somewhere, but I won't link you to that. It truly is an exceptional book that really teaches you about these things. Highly recommended and well worth the money. You'll have to make some purchases before each chapter, nothing too expensive. Just stop wasting money on alcohol or drugs and spend it on something that will benefit you in the future, something more relevant to education haha.

Seriously, that book will explain to you like you're five. It is great. And if you have any questions about the contents of it, you can google it, ask someone on the subreddits, or PM me for information.

Mind if I ask where you live? And what inspires you to be an engineer? What are some of your favorite classes in school? Tell me more about you.

I must say, your approach is a very good one. I can already tell you're a highly motivated person. You have a good attitude.

Edit: Some people are suggesting you start with arduino. But I really recommend you start with reading, and the basic tools (breadboard, components, etc). Although arduino can be basic, it involves coding as well, something you're likely not familiar with. Just get the book, and I promise you'll be satisfied.

Not sure what your budget is (buy used books or South Asia editions), but you may find the following useful :-)

Also, unless required, avoid programming in assembly but use C/C++ exclusively. This allows you to carry over much of your acquired knowledge across various MCU families.

• Make: AVR Programming This will teach you programming directly-to-the-metal on AVR using C. If you have the Arduino IDE installed, you already have the "avr-gcc" compiler toolchain as part of the package and hence you just need to setup your path and use the the toolchain in your Makefile. The book takes you by hand and shows you everything. Note that you can use the same Arduino board to do both "Arduino language" programming and "AVR C" programming.
  
  
• Designing Embedded Hardware Excellent overview of the hardware aspects of Embedded Systems. As a Software guy, this book is the one which clarified hardware for me.
  
  
• Building Embedded Systems: Programmable Hardware A very good book on all practical aspects of embedded programming. Hard-won knowledge which will make you a "professional" embedded engineer.
  
  
• Introduction to Embedded Systems: Using Microcontrollers and the MSP430 Excellent and comprehensive textbook detailing the hardware and software aspects of embedded systems. Every topic starts with an illustrated overview of the hardware and then shows you how to program for it.
  
  
• Embedded C Introductory book on C programming for 8051. The example code is simple and direct thus enabling you to grasp the concepts clearly.
  
  
• Patterns for Time-Triggered Embedded Systems Comprehensive and full of C code showing how to program all standard peripherals for an 8051. You can translate the code to your favourite MCU family. The book is available for free from the author's company website.
  
  
• ARM System Developer's Guide An oldie but still the best for firmware programming on the ARM microprocessor.
  
  
• Practical Microcontroller Engineering with ARM technology An exhaustive book on programming the Tiva version of the ARM Cortex-M4 MCU. The book reads like a manual but the ARM Cortex is complex enough that there is no easy way to learn it.
  
  
• The Engineering of Reliable Embedded Systems Advanced book showing how to implement industrial quality embedded software on various ARM platforms. The 1st edition of the book was available for free on the web.
  
  and finally;
  
  
• Computer Systems: A Programmer's Perspective A must-read textbook to understand the low-level details for a x86/x86-64 system. Many of these details are similar for MCUs and hence you will understand them better.

Hello,

I am just beginning to get into robotics but I am a bit confused as where to start. I am 25 years old and I have a degree in Marketing and Data Analytics. I have no background in computer science; however, I have begun to self teach Python and I am finding it very interesting. The language seems to be coming to me a bit natural as well. After weeks of researching, I have come to find out that to build robots, it might be easier for a beginner to learn Arduino first and then get into Raspberry Pi (please correct me if I am mistaken). I have a few questions:

1. Would it be beneficial to start out with a robotics kit? If so, which one would be most helpful? I have noticed that quite a lot of the kits are catered towards younger kids.
   
   
2. Would it be beneficial to get an Arduino Starter kit instead to learn all the basics beforehand? Would anyone recommend me buying “Arduino Starter Kit” by Arduino (link below). Though there are numerous Arduino kits listed on Amazon, I am not entirely sure if this is the right one or rather more useful one to purchase.
   
   Link: https://www.amazon.com/Arduino-Starter-Kit-English-Official/dp/B009UKZV0A/ref=sxin_2_ac_d_pm?keywords=arduino+kit&pd_rd_i=B009UKZV0A&pd_rd_r=9e598ad7-4080-4b23-b252-6efd4676fefe&pd_rd_w=ipetL&pd_rd_wg=durVx&pf_rd_p=64aaff2e-3b89-4fee-a107-2469ecbc5733&pf_rd_r=BTX5Q96NT2QPSCJ4FQBW&qid=1562463627&s=gateway
   
   
   
3. Rather than buying any kits, would it be beneficial to buy “Robot Building For Beginners” book by David Cook? I read a few pages and the book did seem quite comprehensive regarding the basics of a robot building.
   
   Link: https://www.amazon.com/Robot-Building-Beginners-Technology-Action/dp/1430227486/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=robotics+book&qid=1562463842&s=gateway&sr=8-3
   
   My goal is to learn robotics from inside and out. I do not wish to simply follow a given template or copy/paste a given code. I would like to learn how the code operates internally and how everything is processed. I also do not wish to spend hundreds of dollars since I would like to start on smaller scale and comprehend all the basics first and then start doing larger projects.
   
   If anyone could please guide me where to essentially start with robotics, I would greatly appreciate it!! 

I can recommend you a few things, speaking as a CS/EE double major :)

• Hands on skills are quite important. Learn how to solder, use a DMM, strip wires, etc. There's a lot of tutorials on Youtube and such that show you how to solder well,etc. Watch them and practice.
  
  
• If you're still in school, you may want to consider taking a intro EE course as an elective or similar. If you're not in school but have the time and money, you may want to consider taking a few classes at a nearby college (ie. community college). Alternatively, get a few books/online tutorials and such and self study. I believe MIT OCW has a quite a few EE courses available.
  
  
• Books wise, i recommend the following: Beginning Arduino, Practical Electronics for Inventors, Arduino Cookbook (excellent refference book). Website wise, I recommend t ro n i x s t u f f.
  
  
• Start with the basics. This includes both theory (understanding and applying Ohm's Law) and practice (building actual circuits). Play with the Arduino and LEDs, motors, servo, ultrasonic sensors, etc. Follow tutorials for these BUT know WHY certain things are done in a given way and the reason those things are done. For example, understand why you need a resistor(s) when using LEDs.
  
  
• Once you have the basics down (ie. how to hook up and drive a motor), start a small project. I personally recommend something like an obstacle avoiding or line following robot as it's quite cheap, lots of online help available, easy to understand, etc. Read my post here for more details.
  
  
• Equipment wise, you'll need a few things. Take a look here: http://redd.it/1hoc03 You don't need everything on that list, but get the basics like resistors, capacitors, wires, general purpose PNP/NPN MOSFETs, etc. Then get a few sensors (ie. ultrasonic sensors, photo detectors, temperature sensor, etc) and a few other useful things like shift registers, LCD, piezo buzzer, etc. Also, check out this from /r/electronics.

Sorry, started writing and my power went out, then I kinda forgot to get back to you...
But yeah, There are a few robotics programs out there. At CSM it's an MS in mechanical engineering with the area of study in robotics. CSM has different subsets of mechanical engineering. I found my ME masters to be very helpful but it really depends on what you want to do. Like I mentioned earlier, most of my coworkers at Wolf just finished with a BS. But having a masters will give you a leg up and if you can get funded for it I'd say go for it (teaching assistant, research assistant, or by a company). I'm working towards project engineering and project management but there's also programming, mechanical design, controls, electrical design, and lots of other stuff. Personally, I think most of the advancements in robotics are going to be in the software, more specifically the robot perception.
So as far as what to study now: definitely get good at programming. Mostly C++ and if you get good at one language it's pretty easy to pick up other languages so better to focus and get good at one, and C++ is the most common. Electronics are also huge, circuit design and such. Understanding of voltage, current, motors, etc.
If you're feeling really ambitious and have free time you might look into robot kinematics and SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping). Kinematics is fundamental for industrial and humanoid robots and SLAM is a key concept for mobile robotics and is starting to show in industrial and humanoid robots. These are two of my favorite books on them. There are free digital copies around too.
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Robotics-Mechanics-Control-Edition/dp/0201543613
http://www.amazon.com/Probabilistic-Robotics-Intelligent-Autonomous-Agents/dp/0262201623
But you're probably busy with other stuff. So, focus on programming, math, and yes, electronics. I also have to do 3D modeling and simulations almost every day at work. We use SolidWorks and RobotStudio.

I'll tell you "how to start": Pick up all the editions (there are 4 current ones) of this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Robot-Builders-Bonanza-Gordon-McComb/dp/0071750363

That's the latest one right there - but I promise, you really want the first edition (back when it was still a TAB book). Gordon McComb will guide you one this quest, because he comes from the old school of 1970s and 1980s hobbyist robot builders.

In fact, if you can find copies of the old TAB robotics books by Frank DaCosta ("How to Build Your Own Working Robot Pet"), David L. Heiserman ("How to Design and Build Your Own Custom Robot" - among others), and Edward L. Safford Jr. ("The Complete Handbook of Robotics" - and others) - so much the better.

These are all fairly out-dated books when it comes to the electronics (with the exception of the Bananza books - though the first edition is kinda long in tooth), but the mechanics and ideas are what you may really need and want. Back then, whether you were a university or an individual, if you wanted a robot, you were building it from scratch with whatever you could get your hands on and bodge together most of the time. Sometimes as cheaply as possible, using whatever surplus parts you could find, beg, borrow or steal.

Need a low-cost 2-wheel platform for your robot that can haul hundreds of pounds? Repurpose a used 2-wheel differential drive power mobility chair!

Build the arm out of old electrical conduit and windshield wiper motors; use some potentiometers for angular feedback. Bolt, epoxy, or weld the whole thing together.

Gain an eye for going to the hardware store (or scrounging the trash on bulk-trash days or the junkyard) and looking at things and saying "Yeah - that'd make a right-fine robot chassis there!".

Ya gotta learn to think about things in a different way; I sometimes go to the grocery store and manage to see things that would work great for robotics. I always see things along the side of the road, or in the trash, or at a junkyard, or a pick-ur-part, or hardware store - tons of things that would work for robots! Thrift stores like Goodwill can be excellent robot parts places - if you know how to see!

But those books above will show you how to start, I promise! Give them a go - and don't think you need a ton of money to do robotics - because you don't.

That's what I love about the Arduino platform though! The Arduino platform is a very mixed type of development system of software and hardware work.

You don't know much of hardware? That's fine! You can buy pre-built modules that you literally stack together and then you just need to deal with the software end. It is a bit more expensive this way, making it yourself saves on labor costs of course, but lots of people make completed projects this way, never even touching a soldering iron.

You're big on hardware? You can build it all yourself from the ground up and really go deep into the guts, and save yourself some money (and, sometimes some programming work, depending on what it is).


Though, I don't think a teensie is the development board you'd want to start with to get into the arduino platform, the UNO is best for beginners. But for a lot of people, arduino is their first foray into anything like electronics or programming.

If the itch does ever appear, get a good book (I like Ardunio Cookbook) and get a decent starter kit that comes with more than just the development board (the Sparkfun Inventor's kit looks great to start with).


Not trying to force you, but don't let it scare you off! It's a lot easier to get started in than it seems.

It's a fun hobby. Biggest learning curve is learning how to code. I didnt know a thing when I first started but the arduino community (link below) is really helpful with the process. They will even go over code you've written if your having issues.

Arduino community forum:
https://forum.arduino.cc

Book for learning arduino program language:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1430247762/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_jqgLBbP544HBT

A good starter kit. Comes with alot of goodies like the program used to write the code and compile it, the arduino itself, super sonic sensor, DC motors to name a few as well as data sheets for each piece:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01EWNUUUA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_krgLBbN85GPHF

Book recommended to me that helps with the more complex builds: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1259587541/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_UrgLBb7STEDSA

My first project I made/wrote was to make a couple LEDs blink in specific intervals. May not seem like much but like I said, biggest learning curve is learning to program the arduino itself.

Good luck

Arduino is a great learning tool and to go from idea to finished project is quite fast. I definitely recommend starting with arduino and see if you like it. If you continue, you'll find that you have to purchase an arduino for each project you start, which can get quite expensive, or you'll be ripping apart old projects to get the arduino.


I purchased arduino and a few shields, but I felt like I really didn't know how everything was working electronically. I really enjoy programming, learning about electronics and making devices, so I decided to stop using arduino and just use the atmega microcontroller, which is the MCU that arduino is based on.


If you wanted to go this route then I would suggest buying an AVR ISP mkii programmer and downloading atmel studio. It's much easier to program the chips than any other method I've tried. Less fiddling. If you have experience in C programming then it will be really easy.


This is the best beginners tutorial I've found for atmel AVR:
https://www.newbiehack.com/


This book is an excellent follow up to that tutorial:
http://www.amazon.ca/Make-Programming-Learning-Software-Hardware/dp/1449355781/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1398472387&sr=8-1&keywords=make+avr+programming


A good book on electronics - 1000 pages:
http://www.amazon.ca/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Edition/dp/0071771336

digikey.ca or .com has lots of parts and next day shipping for $8.


how to make an arduino on a bread board:
http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Standalone


Breadboard, Schematic and PCB layout software
http://fritzing.org

Soon you'll be etching PCBs at home

Do you have any background knowledge in electronics? Because I would seriously start there.

I realize you are an adult, but Make: Electronics (Learning by Discovery) was a really great book for me (an adult). It gives you a good foundations in electronics and has fun projects as well.

Make: Analog Synthesizers was particularly fun for me.

Any interest in either of those books? They're both great starting points.

• I can't recommend a better book than this one.
  
• Get this resistor kit. Seriously, I bought one of these a year ago and I've never once had to buy more resistors.
  
• You're going to need a capacitor set like this one.
  
• You're also going to need a breadboard.
  
• Make a trip to Maplin and get an assortment pack of LEDs and a few switches. Trust me, this will make your life a tons easier when it comes to making proof of concept or test circuits. And they make circuitry more interactive and fun!
  
• Lastly, get a cheap multimeter. You can get one at Maplin or somewhere similar for like <15 pounds.
  
  Sorry about the links, I'm in the US so the prices will be in USD but that shouldn't be a problem. I really hope you find this hobby as intriguing as I do, I started a year ago making little flashlights and what-not and now I'm making motion detectors and all kinds of cool gadgets. If you'd like some guidance or help, don't think twice about PMing me! Best of luck.
  

My SO calls me a "badass nerd" and loves to tease me about being nerdier than him (a hard thing to do). I love sparring (I normally fight with two katanas since I am ambidextrous), cosplaying, reading, playing video games, sculpting and drawing, cooking and baking, teasing people, puzzles (particularly logic puzzles), comics, D&D, and crime shows. Also, pokemon!!!!

I am obsessed with tea, and spend far too much money on it. I love giving more than receiving, and adore animals. Children have an odd liking for me, I don't think I've met a kid who doesn't like me yet. I read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy, but will read anything except for romance novels.

I am going to college to double major in Computer Science and Robotics Engineering, which will be a lot of fun! I love building things! Oh, I also love sewing, and I make a lot of my costumes for cosplay. I'm a die-hard Harry Potter geek, and grew up on the series.


I suppose this describes me most since I am really focusing on everything I need to know for my majors! I hope your move goes smoothly! <3

Short answer: yes, Solipsism is a great koan. Keep working at it!

More thoughts:

• From a computational perspective, it doesn't actually matter if there is one computer or many computers. You can simulate an array of separate computers with a single processor and get mathematically equivalent results. So the whole one-many thing may be a red herring.
  
  
• Subjectively, though, I have a fairly strong sense of me-ness most of the time. Deep meditation sessions and good ganja make it possible to see past that into something… else. It is hard to say whether that other perspective is more real, or just another thought form bubbling up to the surface. It is something that I'm actively paying attention to and noting, whenever that perspective makes itself known.
  
  
• I find it helpful to not get too worried about what is "real" in a sort of deep platonic sense. There's consensus reality and there is a lot that seems to be beyond consensus. Consensus reality may very well be a shared illusion or just my own delusion, but it seems like a decent enough way to avoid an involuntary trip to the loony bin.
  
  
• Parallel universes are fun to play with. I can see how what I consider to be my ordinary self, or perhaps my higher self might actually be a pointer that can be nudged this way and that among the possible parallel universes. The big question, though, is how I'd know if I was successful at it. For all I know, the meditation I just finished started with me in a vastly different universe, but now I've got all the memories that go with this one, so it seems like "I" have been here all along.
  
  
• When I think of a single timeline extended into the past and future I have to consider the possibility of branch points. Either their are branch points and I'm constantly making decisions to take this path or that, or we are running on rails and consciousness and free will are all part of the illusion. If I can pick which branch to take here and there, then what happens to the unpicked branches? Or is life more of a hybrid of these fate/free-will models in which the whole tree is laid out and each life is a specific traversal of the life-graph? In that case, do I keep re-living lives until I've traversed them all? Or can I decide to stop at the end? Or were the Buddhists on to something, and I can stop at any time? In that case, why shouldn't I also be able to jump to a different branch or jump around in time? How would I know if I did?
  
  
• Based on how much mileage I've been able to get out of basic theory of computation (see Turing's 1936 paper and the Hopcroft-Ullman book if you want to go deep) and graph theory (Diestel's book is a fine starting point) I suspect that there are a lot of useful tools hanging out in math-land.

Hello! I've always liked this website as a quick primer: http://www.societyofrobots.com/

I remember liking this book a lot when I first started: http://www.apress.com/us/book/9781430227540 but it's a little more advanced and there's a beginner book as well: https://www.amazon.com/Robot-Building-Beginners-Technology-Action/dp/1430227486

Those books are pretty electrical focused, but if you want to learn more of the software (especially if you don't know much/any programming) I'd recommend the Lego Mindstorms.

Finally there's this book: https://www.amazon.com/Robot-Builders-Bonanza-Gordon-McComb/dp/0071750363 which is a pretty good overall reference and enjoyable to read through.

Disclaimer: I read these books over a decade ago. While they're still relevant some stuff in them is dated (especially the microchip programming portions)

There's a lot of Raspberry Pi kits on Amazon that come with wires, a breadboard, some LEDs, and other electronic components. The CanaKit Ultimate is one such kit that's a good price for what it contains. In addition to the Pi kit get him some books with interesting projects.

• Getting Started with the Raspberry Pi
  
• Raspberry Pi Projects for the Evil Genius
  
• Raspberry Pi Projects
  
  These are all pretty good books and have interesting projects. If your son is actually interested in engineering don't let him just stick XBMC or RetroPi on the thing and call it a day. While those projects might be interesting in their own right you're not really learning much if you're just assembling a video player or video game emulator.
  
  If he puts together some interesting projects with the Pi get him a Radio Shack gift card for his birthday. They're trying to get back to being the electronic hobby retailer of choice so they're carrying Pis, Arduinos, and stocking more electronic components.
  
  What's nice about a good kit is a lot of the components will be useful in other types of projects. Breadboards and good wires work just as well on an Arduino as they do on a Raspberry Pi.

I picked up Make: Electronics and so far it has been very insightful. It walks you through doing real world examples while introducing some basic theory. It is all hands on which I like a lot. One caveat is that you need to also purchase all the components and tools. They sell 2 ready made component kits from Makershed.com but you can get the components cheaper utilizing different sources like mouser, jameco, even radio shack.

I also picked up a nerdkit (www.nerdkits.com) and it has been a great intro into microcontrollers. The documentation and support those folks provide are truly second to none. AWESOME community. Once I complete the Make Electronics book, I will be going full steam ahead with seeing how far I can get with MCUs.

And then, it will be on to exploring some robotics for me. If you are like me, be careful that you don't get bogged down with theory only. Back in my teens, I really wanted to explore electronics and read all I could on theory. Which was great and all, but also very very dry. Yes, Ohm's law is critical to know. However, making the leap from theory to practice will be equally as critical and will ensure you see how to really apply the theory you are learning.

The exceptionally helpful Arduino community are doing things like what you want to do, and most of their example code is in Java C. Some of the best programming advice I have heard is to adopt the language that you can get help with easily for the task at hand.

I would recommend you start with Getting Started with Arduino, and move on to the examples in the The Arduino Cookbook.

It is certainly possible, and not very difficult, to switch to Python for Adruino later, if you want to. But I recommend getting your feet under you using the default language, rather than trying to tackle both getting the examples running and converting them to Python at the same time.

Edit: Thanks /u/markrages. You're right, I do recall doing a #define once recently. Must be C. It's definitely one of those 'semi-colon' languages, in any case.

>Flash and ActionScript are not the new BASIC. A huge financial cost up front

WTF. It's free and open source. You can write flash(actionscript) in notepad and compile via the command line. I don't disagree with the general premise, but thought I'd point out this misnomer. THE VM and SWF file formats are also OSS. It has the same syntactical hurdles as Java, but lets not spread misinformation.

You know what I've been liking for teaching kids? Squeak (Smalltalk). Maybe it's just the book I got, Learn Programming with Robots, but this language is really cool, OO, and has a shallow learning curve.

I'd love to see something like Hackety Hack or Squeak for Python. IDLE is nice and all, but for kids, it would be nice to have some LOGO style turtle graphics interface where they could get feedback.

Try r/electronics and maybe r/arduino. The communities there are great, but you need to give a clear description of what you are trying to do.

That said, Forest Mims III's Getting Started in Electronics has probably launched a million hackers, and you can find it at a better Radio Shack.

I also like the book put out by MAKE. It's the book I would have liked to have when I was learning electronics. It goes from licking a 9V battery to using common and useful ICs.

While both of these books will get you started with how electricity works, neither one covers microcontrollers. Buy an Arduino, or a BASIC Stamp, or whatever and just get started. There's tons of info online. And if you have questions or problems, the above subs have lots of smart and helpful people.

I have programmed computers for a living for nearly twenty years. I have also done hobby electronics for longer than that. However, I don't know electronics remotely as much as I do programming. So I have a few things to say about this in terms of programming.

My recommendation would be to begin learning C right away. You'll have to know it to learn C++ later anyway, plus there are many C-like languages out there. Once you understand C, it will be much easier to learn different assembly languages for different devices. From my own experience with electronics and programming, C will be an incredibly useful tool to have at your disposal. Once you have C basics down, there are tons of books and online resources out there for learning to program AI. It will take a few years to get good at programming, so stick with it and be patient.

The great thing about learning programming is that you don't need an instructor or class. You can learn it all on your own, all the way to being a professional. When you get to college, if you wanted to stay with programming only, then computer science would be a wise choice. However, my own experience has shown that getting a degree in computer science isn't necessary if you teach yourself programming, and you work hard at it. Therefore you can focus on electrical engineering when you get there and continue to work on your programming skills yourself.

For electronics, I would start with the book, Make: Electronics. Once you learn C, I would get an Arduino starter kit and a book about it. That will definitely get your feet wet with robotics-like electronics and C programming. You'll be able to do some pretty powerful stuff at that point, and have a really good idea of where to go next with college.

Finally, I would strongly suggest studying as much mathematics as you can. I hated math so much when I was younger, but now I use it all the time and wish I had better skills. You won't need it in the early years, but I guarantee that you'll need it later when you get good at your craft. I know this from my own experience and wish I had studied more math in high school and college. In fact, if I had it to do over, knowing what I know now, twenty years later, I would have just gotten a degree in math. You will eventually be shocked by how many uses there are for even some of the seemingly most useless math stuff. Every little tidbit you learn now is another trick in your pocket to make good money with later on.

I agree, for transitioning from Arduino AVR makes a lot of sense. AVR is pretty nice to work with and will teach you a lot of stuff that is useful on other platforms while keeping complexity down. AVR studio is nice for transitioning because it lets you easily include Arduino libraries as well.

Also, I highly recommend the Make book on AVR. It's a very good introduction and one of the few programming books I would actually recommend buying.

There's plenty of great books that he can refer to when learning electronics, but its fun because you can actually start applying physics knowledge to create circuits and fix things. Make: Electronics is a great book for anyone who wants to learn how to put together some analog circuits - they actually have some kits that go with it. The Art of Electronics goes deeper into the theory behind circuitry and components which might be useful too.

Most physics majors don't usually look at electronics with any depth - that's usually for engineers. But electronics is all about using physics knowledge creatively!

I think it depends on what they want to use computers to do. I learned programming because I wanted to be able to create leet 0-day spl0its like the haxors I saw on the Internet, so I had the motivation to learn C.

I think programs which talk to the world and/or do something "real" are always fun, so how about Python/Ruby so they can do page scraping and web services?

If they knew Smalltalk learning Java or Ruby would be easy. How about Squeak: Learn Programming with Robots? Squeak has nice code exploration tools that let you see what good Smalltalk code looks like, everything is a bunch of small well-defined methods in well-factored classes.

Yeah, it was a little unsettling. No one really said anything about it. His family came and took his toolbox. They found a gun in one of the drawers, but it wasn't a bad thing. The shop was in a rough part of town and he worked late at night machining precious metals if you know what I mean. The guy was a human CNC machine. It was cool to have such an experienced guy showing me what to do. Invaluable machining experience. That itself led to me landing various jobs.

If you end up making something for this guy, you should make a post about it. A cool book that I really like that might help you with other ideas is this:

http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395172215&sr=8-1&keywords=make+electronics

It's written for engineering level students. I have the book myself and I like to build stuff at home when I'm not working.

Your interests are almost identical to mine! I didn't fully decide on my major until Junior year (Electrical Engineering). Started going into Biomedical end of senior year, went to grad school for it, found out it wasn't for me and switched back to EE. Now I'm researching Aerospace navigation systems and absolutely love it.

So no, you aren't going to die if you don't have your life figured out by end of sophomore year. The nice thing about engineering is a lot of the skills carry over between disciplines.

My suggestions are to study topics you are interested on your own; don't wait to learn it in your classes. If you think you are interested in computer engineering and computer science, start teaching yourself digital electronics, learning C and building projects with microcontrollers (AVR microcontrollers are very common) Don't wait for your career to find you, you have to seek it out. Follow your passion and the rest will come naturally.

Side note: I've been teaching myself AVR microcontrollers and digital design this summer, with the end goal of launching a high altitude balloon carrying an HD camera, temp sensors and Geiger counter. Here are the books I've been using, both are fantastic and easy to follow.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1449355781
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0123944244

If you mean near the anode of the battery between the two humps of wire, I don't think so. Looks like the reflection on the hump whizzing by the camera real fast. However, in an inductive load like a motor, if not handled, you can expect to see sparks when the circuit is broken.

See:

• http://www.artisancontrols.com/UtilityImages/ProductSupportPdf/16.pdf
  
  
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyback_diode
  
  As for material for your son, I have a couple things I always recommend to people when they ask. (I volunteered at a local science museum where I live. Got this question a lot.)
  
  An accessible medium is video. There are many, many fantastic shows around for kids interested in science:
  
  
• Magic School Bus
  
• Bill Nye the Science Guy
  
• Beakman's World
  
• Mr. Wizard's World
  
• Cosmos - Which just started up anew!
  
• NOVA
  
• Newton's Apple
  
  Most of those can be found on YouTube!
  
  Then there are more books than you could possible imagine. Even just on Amazon's top selling lists! Here are some that I remember growing up with (maybe I'm biased towards electromagnetism as a studying electrical engineer):
  
  
• You Can with Beakman
  
• Engineering for Every Kid
  
• Leonardo da Vinci Do it Yourself
  
• Make: Electronics (Which is fantastic for electronics!)
  
  And, just because I'm on a roll here, I'm subscribed to a bunch of channels on YouTube centred on science:
  
  
• ASAP Science
  
• Engineer Guy
  
• It's Okay to be Smart
  
• Minute Earth
  
• Minute Physics
  
• Numberphile
  
• Periodic Videos
  
• SciShow
  
• Sixty Symbols
  
• Smarter Every Day
  
• Veritasium
  
  Anyway, hopefully you'll have some fun with your son and maybe even learn something.

I think it's okay to love your iPhone. It's different when you love iPhone. There is a good book called love and sex with robots where he describes the historical, current, and possible future trend of humans falling out of love with each-other and in-love with technology and why it isn't a bad thing. I recommend it if you enjoy reading.

I was about your age when I started to get into robotics. By the time I was 17, I had been programming for fun for about 9yrs and was starting my second year of a high school internship in a hospital's IT department. What started that interest was my curiosity to learn some of the deeper parts of computer science, namely AI.

I'm going to take /u/jonlwowski012's answer to the next step. What you should consider first is what skills you have to start with and what you would like to do next. Robotics is an exceptionally broad field, and very multi-disciplinary. So, for a basic recommendation, I would rephrase your question to help focus on something you have as a goal project that you could do in about 6 months time.

All in all, I would recommend a beginner's book. When I first started, I used an earlier edition of Robot Builder's Bonanza to get a basic understanding. Start there, and let your curiosity drive you onwards!

Good luck!

assuming you have all the fundamental physic, you can start with the textbook from allaboutcircuits's textbook. A introduction to electronic book. It is about 2000 pages covering all basics of electronics. I think it is a great read and easy to understand, written for beginners.


After that you should read Make:AVR programming. It is quite enjoyable read and I read it in 2 sitting. A computer engineering book specifically targeting microcontroller. And as the name imply, it is about 8 bit AVR which is easily the most popular arduino variant. It covers a lot of detail on microcontroller basics and underlying electronic concept and working principles.

To supplement the above book, read a atmel datasheet on one of their microcontroller (atmega328 is a good choice).


For optional knowledge you can try Make's Encyclopedia Of Electronic Components It basically covers all electronic components and introduce you to it. I didn't like too much because you cant read it as a book but should use it as a reference to a particular component you are interested it. It is a great way to broaden your scope on what components is available to you.


Then for the advanced stuff you can read the The Art of Electronics By many it is consider the holy grail of electronic textbook. But I think it is difficult to read without an formal EE education.

This looks like a good book

http://www.amazon.com/MAKE-Electronics-Learning-Through-Discovery/dp/0596153740/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279769926&sr=8-3

This IS a good book but deals with advanced theories.


http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279769926&sr=8-16


And this looks pretty good.

http://www.amazon.com/Circuitbuilding-Yourself-Dummies-Ward-Silver/dp/0470173424/ref=sr_1_21?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279769941&sr=8-21


Go to the book store, pick up some books. Go the the library and see what they have. Pick up old radios and junk off of the street take them home and pull them apart but be careful of the capacitors, if you dont know what a capacitor is then read one of the above books.

Look on craigslist for free electronics and start taking them apart. Be careful of anything that uses Alternating current, anything that plugs into a wall deals with large voltages so be sure to start small.

I'd suggest getting a book on the subject. I've got this one in hand atm. It's relatively cheap, but your library may have a copy of it on hand if you're still in school. Chapter 3 (out of 6 chapters) is basically all about the subject you're trying to tackle.

I can fill in gaps here and there, but I doubt I'd do the subject much justice trying to paint the whole picture.


In broad strokes: A functional( J[ x(t), u(t), t_f ] in your case) is a function of a function. That is, it takes a function defined on an interval as input, and outputs a number. You are trying to minimize this number by varying the function u(t); i.e. computing a control history. The calculus of variations is about learning to take derivatives of functionals with respect to functions(as opposed to functions with respect to coordinates or parameters), and then developing an equivalent to the first and second derivative tests from calculus so as to find extrema.




I found an answer to a similar problem to yours, but it's not quite the same. I really suggest you dig deeper into the subject before anyone like me throws an equation at you.

I had a good time with the Make: electronics book. You won’t become an electrical engineer with it, but it covers some good fundamentals, and won’t bore you to death. There are kits available to work your way through all of the projects, which can be easier than sourcing all of the parts a book/or project talks about. And best yet, the kits (two available) will give you a decent assortment to play with when you are done.

Hope this helps!

make: electronics

Others friends have used:

Mitsumi - super common, affordable, not necessarily high-end

Maxon - Swiss, highest of the high end, used on Mars robots, etc. $150+

Weird Drone Racing Motors - haven't heard of any of these guys but you can tell they're eaking out every ounce of performance

Tamiya, Kyoshi, Goki and other Japanese model companies make some great motors. Maybe not for mass production.

Global Sourcescan be a good source for vendors - I see "Sinopro" comes up a lot.

Last but not least, I liked this book: https://www.amazon.com/Motors-Makers-Steppers-Electrical-Machines/dp/0134032837

​

I have also always wanted to make a robot! And in the past I have actually tried out a few kits but was disappointed with them for exactly what you said ('put it together by following the instructions and its done'). There are many kits out there that are "put tab a in slot b" and it drove me CA-RAY-ZEE because they never explained WHY and what tab a was doing and why slot b was necessary and in the end I knew exactly as much as I did before. That's why a book or set of tutorials with lots of small projects that explain what they are doing is better. The book with the starter kit I linked above was really good at that. I've also heard good things about Arduino Cookbook but I haven't used it myself. After reading all your replies I'd say go for it. Have a project adventure. The worst that can happen is you've spent some $$ and have learned some stuff. And the best that can happen is that you've spent some $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ and have made some really cool things.

I would get an Arduino and a good tutorial book like the Arduino Cookbook and just start trying all the examples. r/Arduino is a good source for help as well. You'll learn the basics of electronics, software, mechanical parts, etc. The Arduino is so popular you'll never run out of example projects and tutorials on the web.

From there you can start thinking about ways to modify the examples and create your own projects. Once you learn how to control things, you can substitute in any mechanical gadget your mind can dream up.

Great work sounds like an awesome idea!

As for recommendations on books I have found these two useful:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Raspberry-Pi-Projects-Evil-Genius/dp/0071821589

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Electronics-Approach-Dr-Neil-Storey/dp/0273773275/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1452164029&sr=1-1&keywords=storey+electronics

Both available used for much less money.

Python bit:

Download and install pythonxy. Such a great tool. Then if you want to practice coding-as-means-of-solving-math-problems, try one of Paul Nahin's code-oriented books, and just work through a bunch of the chapters. I use his books "Digital Dice" and "Number Crunching" pretty extensively in my teaching.

If you are more advanced as a coder, try implementing the algorithms in this, or implement some code to estimate solutions to your favorite PDE.

As someone with zero programming experience, thank you for the reading list. I was just planning on trying to learn python but I don't know if that's the best language to start with. Would you recommend just reading those books and starting with C?

Also, since I have no experience a technical answer would probably go right over my head but could you briefly explain how someone would go about messing around with an OS? I've always wondered what people meant by this. I have Linux installed on a VM but I have no idea what I could do to start experimenting and learning about programming with it.

Edit: Are these the books you're talking about? Physical Computing, C programming, and Writing Great Code?

I don't know any video series, but this is the book series I recommend to new makers:

Fundamentals:

Make Electronics

Useful Companion Reference:

Encyclopedia of Electronic Components Volume 1

Encyclopedia of Electronic Components Volume 2

Bonus Points Reference:

Encyclopedia of Electronic Components Volume 3

Between those books and YouTube you'll be squared away for 99% of anything you would typically build at home. I say that as an engineer with work experience designing electronics.

When I switched away from arduino the microcontroller tutorials on https://www.newbiehack.com/MicrocontrollerTutorial.aspx really helped me out. The book make:avr was inexpensive and good too. The i2c library that comes as a download for the book is really easy to understand, too.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1449355781/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1427629852&sr=8-1&keywords=make+avr&pi=AC_SY200_QL40&dpPl=1&dpID=510a6bjDnWL&ref=plSrch


I would recommend using atmel studio and a programmer of some sort - avrisp mk2 if it's still available or the atmel ice. Avrisp is a programmer only and the ice is a debugger as well.


Buy some atmega328p in a dip package and bread board it out so you know how to setup all the connections. The newbiehack tutorials will show you how.

Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions

I am going through this book:

Make: Electronics (Learning by Discovery)

Beginner like you and it is pretty easy to follow along with. Great explanations.

If anyone is interested, this book is pretty great for amateur hobbyists like a lot of us here.

As a fellow engineering student, I can attest to the fact that NOTHING helps out studying, time-management, and efficiency as my new Tablet!
Also, here is a very interesting textbook that I actually thoroughly enjoyed :)

Make has some great intro stuff for arduino. Good places to start would be to get either the getting started with arduino kit or if you want more advanced stuff immediately the Make ultimate arduino pack.

If you don't want to spend on hardware without understanding, there is a lot on youtube about arduino programming. Arduino Cookbook has most of the basics and a good framework for moving forward.

If you're looking to get some hands-on experience I recommend getting started with Arduino, building projects.

There's lots of beginner's tutorials online. You can buy your parts from Sparkfun Electronics.

I just ordered myself this book to help with some more advanced concepts!

If you get stuck with anything technical or need any help finding resources, feel free to PM me.

You're looking for prime intellect, but here is another you may enjoy


Manna (also available free from his website) http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B007HQH67U?pc_redir=1397674904&robot_redir=1

-----
-----

BOOKS

Children Electronics and Electricity books:

• "Electricity for Young Makers" by de Vinck.
  
  
• "Make: Easy Electronics" by Platt. (12 experiments)
  
  
• "Electronics for Kids: Play with Simple Circuits and Experiment with Electricity!" by Dahl.
  
  
• "Electronics For Kids For Dummies" by Shamieh. (13 experiments)
  
  Newbie Electronics books:
  
  
• "Make: How to Use a Breadboard" by Ragan and Culkin. (10 experiments)
  
  
• "Make: Electronics" by Platt. (34 experiments)
  
  
• "Make: More Electronics" by Platt. (36 experiments)
  
  
• "Lessons in Electric Circuits - Volume VI - Experiments" by Kuphaldt. (free book)
  
  
• Series "Engineer's Mini-Notebook" booklets by Forrest Mims. (download archives)
  
  
• List of books about 555-series Timer ICs on Wikipedia.
  
  Basic Circuit Theory books:
  
  
• "Electrical Circuit Theory and Technology" by Bird. (download old edition)
  
  
• "Introductory Circuit Analysis" by Boylestad. (download old edition)
  
  
• Series "Lessons In Electric Circuits" by Kuphaldt. (free books)
  
  
• List of books about Diodes, Transistors on Wikipedia.
  
  Analog Design books:
  
  
• "Microelectronic Circuits" by Sedra and Smith. (download old edition)
  
  
• "Electronic Devices and Circuit Theory" by Boylestad and Nashelsky. (download old edition)
  
  
• List of books about Operational Amplifier (OpAmp) ICs on Wikipedia.
  
  
• List of books about LM-series Analog Linear ICs on Wikipedia.
  
  Digital Design books:
  
  
• "Digital Fundamentals" by Floyd. (download old edition)
  
  
• "Digital Design: Principles and Practices" by Wakerly. (download old edition)
  
  
• "Digital Design: with Introduction to Verilog, VHDL, SystemVerilog" by Mano and Ciletti. (download old edition)
  
  
• "Digital Design and Computer Architecture" by Harris and Harris.
  (download old edition)
  
  
• List of books about 7400-series TTL Digital Logic ICs on Wikipedia.
  
  
• List of books about 4000-series CMOS Digital Logic ICs on Wikipedia.
  
  Digital Signal Processing books:
  
  
• "Scientist and Engineer's Guide to Digital Signal Processing" by Smith. (download or online)
  
  Computer Design books:
  
  
• List of books about
  6502,
  6800,
  6809,
  8080,
  8085,
  Z80,
  68000,
  x86
  processors on Wikipedia.
  
  
• List of books about
  8051,
  ARM,
  AVR,
  PIC,
  RISC-V
  microcontrollers on Wikipedia.
  
  Electronics Reference books:
  
  
• "The Art of Electronics" by Horowitz and Hill. (download example chapter)
  
  
• "The Art of Electronics - The X Chapters" by Horowitz and Hill. Shipping in 2020.
  
  
• "ARRL Handbook" by various ARRL authors. (download very old edition)
  
  Historical books:
  
  
• "The Intellectual Rise In Electricity - A History" by Park Benjamin in 1895.
  
  
• "Electricity - It's History and Development" by William Durgin in 1912.
  
  
• "Bibliographical History of Electricity & Magnetism" by Paul Mottelay in 1922.
  
  
• "History of Communications Electronics in the United States Navy" by Linwood Howeth in 1963.
  
  -----
  -----
  
  

  MAGAZINES
  

  
  Current Electronics Magazines: (subscribe now)
  
  

• "Circuit Cellar"
  
  
• "Elektor"
  
  
• "Everyday Practical Electronics"
  
  
• "Nuts & Volts"
  
  Historical Electronics Magazines: (archives)
  
  
• "Electronics Today"
  
  
• "Everyday Electronics"
  
  
• "Popular Electronics"
  
  
• "Practical Electronics"
  
  
• "Radio Electronics"
  
  Historical Computer Magazines: (archives)
  
  
• "Byte" - 2nd group
  
  
• "Dr Dobb's Journal"
  
  
• "Interface Age"
  
  

• "Kilobaud"
  
  -----
  

I'm super new myself, but I've got this one: http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740 and its pretty good so far. Starts you from the very basics.

the 328p is a great chip to start out with... a lot of tutorials and guides out there. Also they have very good data sheets on everything. I suggest this book if you want a good place to start

https://www.amazon.com/AVR-Programming-Learning-Software-Technology/dp/1449355781/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3MBZS93GX1Q1U&keywords=avr+programming&qid=1566962768&s=gateway&sprefix=avr+pro%2Caps%2C272&sr=8-2

Thanks. Dress simulation will need to come later I think. At this point I will stick with integrated arms to get the basic functionality done, then once that is working I will add more features such as DCS, dress sim, multi arm, co-ordinated motion, etc.

IK solver is done using the Denavit–Hartenberg parameters and the IK solution as laid out in Robotics by Craig (https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Robotics-Mechanics-Control-3rd/dp/0201543613), chapter 4.

I originally started out with a CCD type solver but I could not maintain the pose properly. Alot of the COTS IK solvers are really more geared toward humanoid type models. But due to the amount of work involved in calculating these parameters for each robot model and the number of robots I plan to support I think I might have to go for something from the Unity asset store.

For Non-Linear systems I love Khaleel. Though I dont remember if he has much on Sliding Mode.

I learned Kalman Filters from [Thrun] (http://www.amazon.com/Probabilistic-Robotics-Intelligent-Autonomous-Agents/dp/0262201623/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348256381&sr=1-1&keywords=probabilistic+robotics). Though he really approaches it from a software perspective and not necessarily controls (they are merging now!). He also has all different flavors of filters, which is awesome.

It definitely depends on the topic. For linear control theory, Hespanha has a good book. Slotine is popular for nonlinear control theory. Thrun has a ridiculously popular book for stochastic control. I've been meaning to finish Crassidis' book on estimation theory in general. As for underactuated systems specifically, like motion planning and such, I have not read any particular book, but the course notes for the MIT class I linked are basically a good book.

For elementary kids, I would highly recommend them checking out FIRST robotics. They have a lot of different age levels for robotic interest. Or if you don’t want to go through an organized group, check out LEGO Mindstorms for building robotics.
Finally, check this book out if you just want a general introduction to building robotics (see if a library has it first before buying it) Robot Builder’s Bonanza

Edit: If you have more questions on FIRST I’d be happy to answer them but this should be a good starting point

These are extremely rudimentary forms of process control theory--and yet they are still taught in almost every undergraduate stats course for non-mathematicians everywhere I have seen.

For more modern approaches, you need to look first towards control theory

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_theory

Then toward the theory of optimal control

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimal_control
https://math.berkeley.edu/~evans/control.course.pdf

Then finally to the marriage of this with statistics under the theory of Intelligent Control

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_control

I highly recommend Stengel's text (even if the formulation is a bit dated) http://www.amazon.com/Optimal-Control-Estimation-Dover-Mathematics/dp/0486682005

This gives a gentle introduction to all of these topics and culminates in some Bayesian control examples.

Corresponding seminar from Princeton by Stengel himself:
http://www.princeton.edu/~stengel/MAE546Seminars.html



So... in short, the SPC that you learned about with control charts etc is not a bad rudimentary alarming system if you can make normality assumptions about your error, and you assume your process is itself should be stationary; however, to have more rigor you can to turn to these other control / statistical decision theory methods

You should get a project book.

Something like the Robot Builder Bonanza might be nice, it's all about making your own bots rather than assembling a kit but still worth it, especially since you can shop around for individual components and save money.

For electronics, Make: Electronics is a great book that introduces components and basic concepts. Each chapter has a parts list so you can buy individual components as you go along or order a kit with everything included. You don't need expensive tools to get started, the cheap stuff is fine.

For programming, check out /r/learnprogramming, codecademy.com, or any of the high rated books on Amazon. Python is recommended for beginners, although if you know what university you are transferring to try and find out what language they use for their intro classes.

And if you want to shell out the cash, you can buy the student version of MATLAB and get started with it. There's a billion Youtube tutorials and books available that walk you through it.

I love K&R, and in fact learned C from it 35 years ago. (At the time, there were very few books about computer languages of any kind, and only one about C!) However I don't think it's a very good book for beginning programmers. It's a succinct introduction to the language, not a tutorial to introduces concepts gradually to beginners.

So you might consider this, instead of (or in addition to) the K&R book:
http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Arduino-Programming-Technology-Action/dp/1430247762

Purdum's book covers C programming on Arduino in progressive detail, and directly addresses both hardware and software.

I read a lot too, but finding new subjects can be fun.

Last year, I got into locksport (recreational lock picking) because I realized I knew almost nothing about locks.

I am starting studying electronics because I can build computers, program and use them, and hack, but I knew very little about the underlying electronics. And considering that electronics are used in so many different things, I think it is worth having a practical understanding of it all.

I am using this book: http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740

It seems to be a well regarded source for beginners. RadioShack had the kit which had all the stuff for the first chapters (the book actually goes into several areas to expose the reader to what comes next...the kit does not come with the parts for that). It was on sale and I had a coupon which expired this week.

Sparkfun has some great tutorials, but they might be a little advanced for your level. I suggest trying to find a kit that does something interesting (adafruit and sparkfun have some of these). When you run into something you don't know, google it.

Also, BUY THIS BOOK!

All these comments are great, but the absolute beginning is here!

Next read the book suggested by ryzic. If you have the money, id buy the companion kits that Make sells for the book.

After reading those two books and doing all the projects, look into some "project kits." Check out sparkfun, The Evil Genius series of books, or my favorite the Nuts and Volts store.

After three or four "project kits" just find schematics and figure out how to buy all the parts yourself. Really the world is your oyester and with enough struggling you can build anything. Some ideas that always get people excited: a Tesla coil, cell phone jammers, tasers, ultrasonic range finders, a robotic arm, mechanized nerf gun, anything you think is cool and can find a schematic for.

From there you a going to find yourself really interested in microcontrollers. And well.. Thats a different comment lol!

For electronics I started with this book: http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1369542421&sr=8-1&keywords=Make%3A+electronics
It has lots of cool experiments to get you started with concepts.

Then there's this: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electronics-Inventors-Third-Edition/dp/0071771336/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1369542421&sr=8-10&keywords=Make%3A+electronics
This will go much deeper into theory and give you a strong foundation.

Though if you want to delve right into the programming part: http://www.makershed.com/Getting_Started_with_Arduino_Kit_V3_0_p/msgsa.htm
and
http://www.makershed.com/Raspberry_Pi_Starter_Kit_Includes_Raspberry_Pi_p/msrpik.htm

MicroCenter will have the kits, and RadioShack should have the tinier parts, as well as the Raspberry Pi.

Once you gain some basic programming abilities (the Arduino suggestion is a good one to follow up on), if you're actually planning on controlling hands to pick things up as you say, you should delve into a book such as http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Robotics-Mechanics-Control-3rd/dp/0201543613/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1314820514&sr=8-1 .

This book is awesome and it's really easy to learn from: http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740/ref=pd_sim_b_1

I don't know if this is what you are looking for, but it seems pretty cool:
Make: Electronics

He's not reading the right books, or maybe they aren't popular enough. While I really enjoy space sci-fi like Star Trek, I think Singularity sci-fi is going to be more relevant for the coming century. I highly recommend The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect, Accelerando, and Manna. These concepts haven't made it to the screen yet.

Sipser is a very good book. If the OP wants to go even further back with the classics in that area, and he actually does make it through a lot of the Sipser book and wants to pick up some more advanced topics, I'd also recommend the first edition of Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation, aka the Cinderella Book.

I'd pick up the following kit and book. I've had this kit for years, and it's a pretty good intro. The breadboard and external components make it expandable so you can use your own components for experimentation. It also had a lot of IC circuits.

The book will get you playing on your own, and supplement where the kit leaves off.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=28733516#

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0596153740/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_OnZaub1V8MYBY

I found the Make AVR programming book very helpful. I took an online embedded course offered through my university last year and the instructor and content were awful. If it wasn't for this book I never would have passed the course or been able to decipher any of the course material or assignments. I ended up with an A which was solely due to this book and does not reflect on the quality of instruction I was offered in any way. I'm still salty about the $1k I spent on the course but a credit is a credit I suppose.

https://www.amazon.ca/AVR-Programming-Learning-Software-Hardware/dp/1449355781

If you already have an Ardunio this set is the one we use at our school. (Although, full disclosure, I don't live in Singapore) On top of that, of course the Ardunio Cookbook...

Hope that helps.

If you're serious about being a professor, read the first edition of that book. A much harder read, but much more complete. Less watered down. Not for the faint of heart, but neither is a PhD in CS Theory.

EDIT: Here's the link to buy, but your school should have a copy.

Considering you're at Uni check out the library for free resources too. My library had endless books on python and a couple arduino and raspberry pi books. I checked out The Arduino Workshop and enjoyed working through it.

https://www.amazon.com/Arduino-Workshop-Hands-Introduction-Projects/dp/1593274483/ref=pd_sim_14_7?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=1593274483&pd_rd_r=ND704MCP7S0H8W3CAQDB&pd_rd_w=005dA&pd_rd_wg=32nYz&psc=1&refRID=ND704MCP7S0H8W3CAQDB

Thanks very much. Do you know about this book? I have found it really useful.
https://www.amazon.com/AVR-Programming-Learning-Software-Hardware/dp/1449355781/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1500993136&sr=8-1&keywords=AVR+programming

Make: Electronics is a fantastic book for the hardware side of things. It does not use the Arduino (it only briefly touches on microcontrollers at the end), but it will give you a solid foundation to whicht you can easily apply the Arduino.

Start with this book. That'll help you spend your money smartly as well as get fundamentals down.

With a programming background you will take to working with the code and libraries fairly easily but working with the electronic principles a little more challenging (at least that was my case). This book wasn't specific to Arduino but made working with the Arduino much easier for me as I got the basics down as far as working with capacitors, resistors, LED's, pull downs, switches, etc.
http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740

I'm in my junior year of highschool, myself, and I know that some extremely basic circuitry is going to pop up later this year in physics, but I don't think it will sate my appetite at all. And you're right, it's the practical part of it that interests me, which is why I haven't bought any kits already - it seems that the entry kits are all things that I have no use for, like pocket VU meters and infrared tripwires, but I guess I'll have to get over that. I'm not a fan of For Dummies books, so I think I'll look into this one, which I found in one of the threads in videoj's link.

Thanks.

I found Arduino Workshop and Arduino Cookbook to be very helpful resources.

This might be helpful for your gardening project.

I'm a Mechanical Engineering student and I found myself in a similar situation as you. I decided I wanted to learn about robotics and make a robot in my free time. I highly suggest Robot Building for Beginners by David Cook. The book goes over design, prototyping, and good practices for technical skills (soldering, etc.).
http://www.amazon.com/Robot-Building-Beginners-Technology-Action/dp/1430227486/ref=dp_ob_title_bk

I found this to be an excellent intro to the AVR series microcontrollers, and many of the concepts should port over to other families as well: https://smile.amazon.com/AVR-Programming-Learning-Software-Technology/dp/1449355781/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541196283&sr=8-1&keywords=make+avr+programming

I read this book and found it quite interesting and easy to read. It includes many pictures and is quite hands on DIY.

http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740

Thank you! I think I might buy Make: Electronics or Practical Electronics for Inventors just to have on hand as a quick reference manual.

I was in a similar situation a little while ago, and I decided to learn to program AVRs directly in C. I bought this book, and I think it's a really good resource.

https://www.amazon.com/AVR-Programming-Learning-Software-Hardware/dp/1449355781/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1504786998&sr=8-1&keywords=make+programming+avr

On a Mac, you can use any text editor you like, then flash the code to the AVR from the terminal.

AVRs are really cheap by the way! Here on Digikey, you can get them for $2 each.

https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/microchip-technology/ATMEGA328-PU/ATMEGA328-PU-ND/2271026

To be helpful for your testing, in my experience geometry algorithms often fail in cases where geometries almost have a relation. For example, almost coincident, almost intersects, segment length almost 0, coincident with almost equal points, etc...

Also, checkout http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Geometry-Applications-Mark-Berg/dp/3540779736/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422374000&sr=8-1&keywords=computational+geometry+algorithms+and+applications. It is absolutely the single best book fior advanced geometry algorithms.

http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Arduino-Learn-Programming/dp/1430247762

I have this book; I knew nothing about programming and this book really has done a good job so far on teaching me.

I would suggest this book first, to introduce you to C with immediate feedback, then a C++ book or further programming learning if you deem fit.

The defacto bible is "The Art of Electronics" by Horowitz and Hill which still sells for $100 even though the latest edition is from 1989. It is a thick book, but is better than most textbooks IMHO. They refer to many part numbers that are long past gone, but it should give you the vocab and keywords for you to search out the current parts.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Electronics-Paul-Horowitz/dp/0521370957/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342471024&sr=8-1&keywords=art+of+electronics

Other than that, if you want more beginner books - look at Make: Electronics
http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1342471247&sr=1-1&keywords=make+learning+electronics or the Forrest Mims books

As far as power supplies specifically, I believe I found a couple of howto webpages that described the basics - I'll edit this post if I find them again.

There are tons of projects! There are hacker groups and forums for literally every type of project out there on the internet. Read up on what other people have done in order to get ideas and avoid costly mistakes. I have no idea what you're into, but here are some things that I would like to build.

diy go kart:
http://www.diygokarts.com/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Intro-44/

drones:
http://diydrones.com/

Amateur telescope + exoplanets
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz0sBkp2kso

Rocketry (be careful!)
http://www.apogeerockets.com/Advanced_Construction_Videos/All
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12fR9neVnS8

Robotics
http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Robot
http://makezine.com/projects/building-a-simple-arduino-robot/
http://www.amazon.com/Arduino-Robotics-Technology-Action-John-David/dp/1430231831

Sterling engine
http://diystirlingengine.com/

A lot of cool projects mainly involve electronics and programming, but can still provide valuable skills for a mechanical engineer.

Magnetic levitator
http://hackaday.com/2013/12/05/avr-atmega-based-pid-magnetic-levitator/

Robotics simulator
http://gazebosim.org/

Motion sensing camera
http://www.instructables.com/id/Raspberry-Pi-Motion-Sensing-Camera/

Weather station
http://www.weather.dragontail.co.uk/index.php?page=station_setup

Note*
Some of the projects are more expensive and difficult than others. Keep in mind that the parts list doesn't always include the tools you will need to put stuff together.

Arduino er en veldig god start i min mening, om du ikke mener det er overveldende. Det er jo fort litt elektronikk og kode som må læres før man gjør kule prosjekter, men det er ikke egentlig så ille om man ikke biter av for mye om gangen. En fordel med Arduino er at du bruker et språk veldig likt C++, så hoppet fra Arduino til C++ er ikke så stort.

Er noe mer usikker på det med lærebøker, men det finnes en del hobbybøker med x prosjekter i som kunne vært en god basis, som f.eks denne eller denne.

Skulle han ha mer intresse av koding enn nødvendigvis å lage duppedingser vil jeg derimot peke retning python. Code Academy har et helt greit begynnerkurs (gratis) for nybegynnere.

I would start with your basic UNO as part of a starter kit. If you've never done it before, working through the samples is the absolute best way to get going. In addition, get the Arduino Cookbook. With those two things, you should be able to work up to doing what you need to do.

Make: AVR Programming
This book is specifically written people looking to get started in microcontroller programming. Uses the chip from the Arduino which is cheap, common, and there’s a lot of options in the product line. Teaches C. Explains concepts found in all micro controllers. Designed as a project book. I liked it. Problem is it uses 8 bit micros. The modern micros are 32 bit. But again the concepts are widely applicable.

Patrick Hood Daniel
This guy’s YouTube channel contains long, in depth tutorials on using and programming micro controllers. He even sells the dev boards he uses so you can get the exact parts he uses and not get lost in translation.

I know it’s not resources in the image but other than practical electronics I don’t know how much the others will focus on micro controllers besides the Arduino books. And if you want to go beyond the Arduino platform the make book I-recommended would be better.

Consider Make Electronics.

It is a full color book with a magazine-like layout that he should find appealing. It walks you through projects from very basic in the beginning to more advanced toward the end. There are also a couple component kits you can buy from Radio Shack or online from makershed.com. Those kits will save a lot of hassle by providing all the parts needed to do the projects.

I really like Make: Electronics http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740

It will take you step by step through electronic components by building circuits that show you how they work. It's written with a very conversational style and is really just very well done IMO.

http://www.reddit.com/r/breadboard
http://www.reddit.com/r/electronics/

I enjoyed this book as well:

http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740

I'm in a similar boat as you and recently picked up Robot Builder's Bonanza, 4th edition (https://www.amazon.com/Robot-Builders-Bonanza-Gordon-McComb-dp-0071750363/dp/0071750363/). It's a couple hundred pages containing a significant amount of information on understanding how to construct a robot start to finish. For the electrical engineering side, the website https://www.allaboutcircuits.com is the way to go when starting out. That site is chock-full of educational material, and it's totally free.

I already use Linux Mint on a VM for general use. Would you suggest something like a Linux From Scratch or Gentoo setup to learn more about these things?

Any particular book/resource recommendation? Should I start with the arduino libraries (which I know are training wheels in the professional world) or jump straight to bare metal?

I'm looking at these:

https://www.amazon.com/Exploring-Arduino-Techniques-Engineering-Wizardry/dp/1118549368/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1520354917&sr=8-7&keywords=arduino+books

or

https://www.amazon.com/Arduino-Workshop-Hands-Introduction-Projects/dp/1593274483/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1520354917&sr=8-9&keywords=arduino+books

Just to add to GreyMX's answer a little bit:


There are embedded IMUs on the market now (e.g. Analog Devices ADIS line) that cost a few hundred dollars, and are small, accurate, and precise enough to do these sorts of tasks. The go-to method for finding the postionand orientation of fixed wing UAVs has been a combination of IMU and GPS, where the translation/rotation information you're looking for is generated by a Kalman filter that is calibrated with a model of the UAV dynamics.



A really good book for getting into these techniques is Probabilistic Robotics:

http://www.amazon.com/Probabilistic-Robotics-Intelligent-Autonomous-Agents/dp/0262201623/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1409573217&sr=8-1&keywords=probabilistic+robotics

Hmm. I'm not aware of any free lectures (that doesn't mean there aren't any). There is this book, which is quite good (and you can read it online free): http://planning.cs.uiuc.edu/

Here's another textbook which I've read that covers many motion planning approaches: Principles of Robot Motion

Personally my favorite robotics book is Probabilistic Robotics, which doesn't really cover motion planning, but includes a lot about sensing and localization that you'll need to build a practical autonomous robot.

It was David Levy "Love + Sex with Robots"

https://www.amazon.com/Love-Sex-Robots-Human-Robot-Relationships/dp/0061359807

And I think it was the Colbert Report.

http://www.cc.com/video-clips/ykpl7i/the-colbert-report-david-levy

Buying a few kits is a good way to learn some basic techniques but I'd also recommend checking out this book: http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=04BB6E49FT8V4ZAPNATV

Many years ago i started with this book, it has been updated to keep up with technology and is great for beginners:

http://www.amazon.com/Robot-Builders-Bonanza-4th-Edition/dp/0071750363/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=1YS0Z9X2H3V1P95JTC9Q

I am the same way as you, i need to be hands on to learn, this book realy helped me.

I am a computer vision engineer working in a very closely related field.

Read these things and then get back to me:

http://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~vgg/hzbook/

https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Vision-Models-Learning-Inference/dp/1107011795 my favorite textbook

http://szeliski.org/Book/drafts/SzeliskiBook_20100903_draft.pdf

https://www.amazon.com/Probabilistic-Robotics-Intelligent-Autonomous-Agents/dp/0262201623

https://people.freebsd.org/~lstewart/articles/cpumemory.pdf

http://www.lsi.upc.edu/~robert/teaching/master/material/p5-goldberg.pdf

http://webdiis.unizar.es/~raulmur/MurMontielTardosTRO15.pdf and all cited papers

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23948930/Papers/3DGeometry.pdf

http://users.ics.forth.gr/~argyros/mypapers/2005_10_iccv_levenberg.pdf

http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920033707.do

Maybe something like this?

http://vetco.net/products/300-in-one-experimenter-kit

I'd also recommend the following books:

Practical Electronics for Inventors:
www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1259587541

Make: Electronics:
www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1680450263

Make: More Electronics:
www.amazon.com/dp/1449344046

Some book suggestions:
Making Things Move
Physical Computing
Motors for Makers

These books can be found on the Web ...

Maker Media, Inc., publishes many books and a magazine that could be of inspiration.

If you only get one book get Make: Electronics. I was in your position not that long ago, and after getting this book I am now able to build any circuit I need. This book is great and I'll leave it at that.

Hey don't feel bad if you did. Breaking things is a fine way to learn. (I mean, I'm kind of curious about what the insides of a servo look like in person. Haha.) I was going to link to a book I saw that teaches you electronics by breaking stuff (like the first lesson was to completely burn up an LED haha). But I can't find it.

Oh wait, it was this book after all: http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740

>I'm a first year engineering student at a top 5 uni in the UK

Well, a couple quick looks for "how to learn C on arduino" gives me a few hundred thousand hits... so, did you look at all?

How about a book?

How about a web tutorial?

How about some more web tutorials?

Make: Electronics is a very good book. You can buy a series of kits to complete the projects in the book. There is also a sequel (Make: More Electronics) and a series of encycliopedias from Make about electronic components.

I wrote a book which would be perfect for your students: http://www.amazon.com/Arduino-Workshop-Hands-On-Introduction-Projects/dp/1593274483

A lot of the Mims books are a good start, such as this one: Getting Started In Electronics

Also in the same vein, the "MAKE:Electronics" book by Charles Platt

My suggestion is to get started building as quickly as possible. That's the key. Also, if you want to hear more about electronics, I can selfishly recommend my podcast, The Amp Hour

I really enjoyed these books.
https://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740

https://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740

Someone gifted me this book a few years ago and I highly recommend it for getting into basic electronic fun. Doesn't really get into programming (using an arduino) until the end but it is all still applicable to things you might design around a raspberry pi or whatever microcontroller you want to use.

I'd recommend this book to anyone serious about controls. It's a fairly dense though, so you might look for another more readable one as well.

There is an edition out there with an appendix on "Optimal control and the meaning of life". Ignore that part.

edit: I was thinking of this book (Appendix C). There is a PDF of it online somewhere.

Kits are fun but another suggestion would be to grab the Charles Platt book " make: electronics, learning by discovery" and follow the activities there. I think the book has suggestions on where to buy components too.


Amazon link https://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740

Make: do a series of 3 electronics encyclopedias which are quite good for the beginner. Here's a link - https://www.amazon.com/Encyclopedia-Electronic-Components-Capacitors-Transistors/dp/1449333893



But if you Google about, you can usually find the PDF's to download, if you know what I mean.

I recommend Getting Started With Arduino, it is by one of the creators on the original Arduino. It aims at someone with no programming/electronics experience and breaks down the sketches of simple programs one line at a time.

Although it only covers the basics, it is very short and can be read very quickly. I would read that as a quick introduction and then go onto using the arduino cookbook, which can be used for reference for specific projects.

This book is a good overview.

https://www.amazon.com/Motors-Makers-Steppers-Electrical-Machines/dp/0134032837/ref=asc_df_0134032837/

There's https://www.adafruit.com/ for DIY kits and what have you. A good book is https://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740 - You can also buy a kit specific to the book that has all the components needed for the projects.

What you're describing is the beginning to the book Manna: Two Visions of Humanity's Future. It's a short read, and the tl;dr is that unfettered automation will fuck over mankind if we don't decide early on to make it serve to benefit mankind as a whole. That means completely and utterly rejecting capitalism and the entire foundation of modern economics. It's a very interesting concept and the book itself is a good read.

I like Make: Electronics (Learning by Discovery).

I recommend [this one] (https://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740) to get you started and [this one] (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1259587541/ref=pd_aw_sbs_14_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=51jqydmy07L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL100_SR100%2C100_&refRID=S7QEVWW47MVYRDZFR3KY) once you get some knowledge in your noggin.

You mentioned Arduino, so I'd recommend this book and Make:Electronics

For the more academic side of things I'd recommend, The Art of Electronics Student Manual

I recommend this book, this mailing list, and this language

highly recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/AVR-Programming-Learning-Software-Technology/dp/1449355781/

Granted, it's not Arduino (it's AVR, the microcontroller Arduino is based on, but you can still use an Arduino with its lessons with some software tweaks) and implies you know a decent amount of C programming, but it's written well enough so even an idiot like me could understand it.

Check out the book by Berg et al.
http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Geometry-Applications-Mark-Berg/dp/3540779736

It's a very comprehensive introductory book on computational geometry with loads of walkthroughs and pseudo codes.

I've always liked Computability, Complexity, and Languages by Davis and Weyuker. It's not as formalistic as the classic by Hopcroft and Ullman, but it's still very mathematical.

There absolutely are geometric algorithms. My class on computational geometry used this book, which was adequate.
Edit: Forgot the link: http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Geometry-Applications-Mark-Berg/dp/3540779736

See also [Love + Sex with Robots] (https://www.amazon.com/Love-Sex-Robots-Human-Robot-Relationships/dp/0061359807/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1518557668&sr=8-1&keywords=sex+and+love+with+robots)


edit: It's a book and that's an Amazon link.

Somehow this book doesn't seem to crazy right now.

https://www.amazon.com/Robot-Builders-Bonanza-Gordon-McComb/dp/0071750363

http://www.amazon.com/Raspberry-Pi-Projects-Evil-Genius/dp/0071821589

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0201543613/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494676265&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=craig+intro+robotics&dpPl=1&dpID=41A%2BRKVFv9L&ref=plSrch

Here are three that you MUST know:

http://www.amazon.com/Probabilistic-Robotics-Intelligent-Autonomous-Agents/dp/0262201623/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269491705&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Robot-Motion-Implementations-Intelligent/dp/0262033275/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1269491705&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Autonomous-Mobile-Intelligent-Robotics/dp/026219502X/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_c

In fact, when I searched for the first book it brought up a recommendation for all three.

Forrest Mims books? or Make Electronics and More Make Electronics

http://www.amazon.com/s/url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=forrest%20mims&sprefix=forrest+mims%2Caps&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aforrest%20mims

http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740/

www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Journey-Amplifiers-Randomicity/dp/1449344046/

Analog Seekrets by Leslie Green (Once you have a handle on Electronics)
http://www.logbook.freeserve.co.uk/seekrets/
http://www.eevblog.com/files/seekPDF.pdf

You absolutely must get the book "Make: Electronics".

I think what you are looking for is a book called Make: Electronics

Get this http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416658549&sr=8-1&keywords=electronic+circuits+book , then go through the arduino examples.

This book helped me a lot: http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414321028&sr=8-1&keywords=make+electronics

The Make books for electronics will get you a decent groundwork for the practical application side of things. Practical Electronics for Inventors will you get you covered on the theory side of things.

MAKE Electronics: http://www.amazon.com/MAKE-Electronics-Learning-Through-Discovery/dp/0596153740

Best learning electronics book, evar

Book

Tools and parts

If you're willing to spend $30, this book will teach you everything you need to know.

Take a look at the "Arduino Cookbook"

Get an Arduino cookbook and a starter kit

Getting Started with Arduino
http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Started-Arduino-Massimo-Banzi/dp/1449309879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1373826672&sr=8-1&keywords=getting+started+with+arduino

Arduino Cookbook
http://www.amazon.com/Arduino-Cookbook-Michael-Margolis/dp/1449313876/ref=sr_ob_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1373826622&sr=8-2

Check out the Arduino Cookbook! Covers just about everything you'll need when writing code.

Non-mobile: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1449355781/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1427629852&sr=8-1&keywords=make+avr&pi=AC_SY200_QL40&dpPl=1&dpID=510a6bjDnWL&ref=plSrch

^That's ^why ^I'm ^here, ^I ^don't ^judge ^you. ^PM ^/u/xl0 ^if ^I'm ^causing ^any ^trouble. ^WUT?

Manna.

You'll find a long list on Amazon. I'm no expert on the subject, but I picked up Optimal Control and Estimation and got through a bit in my spare time. Seems decent enough.

Weird. Works for me here and from everywhere I've tried.

It's a short sci-fi story about automation, called Manna. The author is Marshall Brain.

Here it's for the Kindle (costs 99 cents.)

Alligator clips are recommended by Charles Platt in his book Make: Electronics. And he's no amateur. Just because you've discovered micro clips doesn't mean that alligator clips are all of a sudden the worst idea ever.

http://www.amazon.com/Make-Electronics-Discovery-Charles-Platt/dp/0596153740/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1419029216&sr=8-3&keywords=charles+platt