If you spend much time thinking about building robots, this book is a must have. It is a great read and a good reference book. I couldn't put it down for all the pictures, educational comments, tutorials, vendor references, and articles relevant to building my robots.
I've been in the Dallas Personal Robotics Group for four + years and served as an officer. These pages taught me a bunch of new, useful info. Info like the name and sources for those wheels that roll forward and sideways - Omniwheels, where to find Electro luminescent "glow wire", etc. Also, I now know where to find my chart on screw sizes, metric conversion and screw cross-referencing to metric. There are even pages referencing books, with one-liner summaries, to focus my search for further reading.
Sources and suppliers for common and unusual parts abound as well as their URLs. Even a website with additional or more current URLs is maintained to help me.
The book is alphabetical by robot topic with the most relevant info. There is an index for parts and components by categories as well as an reference index by company name.
I love the pictures and overview of new and current products, like
- the motion control, Isopod state machine from New Micros Inc.
- the Quadravox digital sound boards
- the OOPic Micro controller and 2 page explanation.tutorial
- the perspective and explanation or the Parallax BS2 Basic Stamp and its cousins
- the extensive info on servos and servo controllers
- as well as good practical info on many sensors, even how to make a simple foam pressure sensor.
If you are going to cruise the Internet to learn more about robots and robot building peruse this book first. It has the most relevant info cleanly organized and explained for you.
All in all, I have too many dog-eared pages marking topics that ignite my creativity and imagination. You can be sure I'll be building more neat robots, easier because of this book. My thanks to Gordon McComb and McGraw Hill!