Introducing myself
Introducing myself
by careyg
Tue Jul 01, 2008 10:30 pm
Hi All,
New member here (Gavin, Gav, etc), just this evening taken the plunge and ordered a RoboBuilder kit, hence why I'm posting in this forum, as I hope to be able to take advantage of the experience and work of everyone else that's pre-ordered.
My experience with Robots thus far is minimal - I've built a couple of basic "drive-bump-turn-drive" / "follow the light source" type things from kits over the years- but am always let down by my soldering and accuracy (shakey hands) when trying to do anything more complex, which has ended up with them languishing in cupboards unloved.
So I've finally decided to splash the cash for a kit with which I might have more luck. Was tossing up between a kit wheeled gizmo (cheaper) or the humanoid form (more fun?) and ended up here (the misses is away so wasn't here to stop me wielding the credit card with wild abandon!)
My background is a Computer Science degree, and my interest is in programming (though in my job I stopped coding a few years ago now, so am a little rusty in anything other than perl!), hoping to regain my former C prowess and teach the robot (name to be determined) to do fun / interesting things, hopefully leapfrogging my poor soldering/building skills with a kit robot will let me get more heavily into that, more quickly (time permitting - damn job!)
So, erm, that was a long way to say hello!
suspect you'll find me hanging out here in the forums being more wordy than I need too quite often!
If anyone has any hints & tips for me to get started, or pointers to forum posts / websites to read my way through whilst I await, in anticipation, for the arrival of the 'bot (the question is - will it beat the misses back from her mothers next week, or not? will impact how much time i have to play!!) the I'd appreciate it. Going to head off now and download the various instructions to get myself familiar as I can before it arrives.
oh, and watch YouTube videos of RoboBuilder in action some more....
Cheers!
Gav.
New member here (Gavin, Gav, etc), just this evening taken the plunge and ordered a RoboBuilder kit, hence why I'm posting in this forum, as I hope to be able to take advantage of the experience and work of everyone else that's pre-ordered.
My experience with Robots thus far is minimal - I've built a couple of basic "drive-bump-turn-drive" / "follow the light source" type things from kits over the years- but am always let down by my soldering and accuracy (shakey hands) when trying to do anything more complex, which has ended up with them languishing in cupboards unloved.
So I've finally decided to splash the cash for a kit with which I might have more luck. Was tossing up between a kit wheeled gizmo (cheaper) or the humanoid form (more fun?) and ended up here (the misses is away so wasn't here to stop me wielding the credit card with wild abandon!)
My background is a Computer Science degree, and my interest is in programming (though in my job I stopped coding a few years ago now, so am a little rusty in anything other than perl!), hoping to regain my former C prowess and teach the robot (name to be determined) to do fun / interesting things, hopefully leapfrogging my poor soldering/building skills with a kit robot will let me get more heavily into that, more quickly (time permitting - damn job!)
So, erm, that was a long way to say hello!
suspect you'll find me hanging out here in the forums being more wordy than I need too quite often!
If anyone has any hints & tips for me to get started, or pointers to forum posts / websites to read my way through whilst I await, in anticipation, for the arrival of the 'bot (the question is - will it beat the misses back from her mothers next week, or not? will impact how much time i have to play!!) the I'd appreciate it. Going to head off now and download the various instructions to get myself familiar as I can before it arrives.
oh, and watch YouTube videos of RoboBuilder in action some more....
Cheers!
Gav.
by limor
Thu Jul 03, 2008 2:57 am
Hi, Gav. You made a good choice. The robot kit offers lots of programmability options without the need for soldering. If you downloaded the docs from robobuilder.net and looked at the threads here you are as ready as any to get the kit and start exploring. First 10 kits were shipped out today the rest will be shipped out in a week or so.
by careyg
Thu Jul 03, 2008 9:23 pm
Thanks Limor,
I guess having got a "not all orders will be filled from the batch shipping today" email, that means "my order will not...."?
Disappointing, but I suspect no big deal in the great scheme of things! (To used to instant fulfillment these days, spoiled by itunes, amazon, etc) i shall have to wait and read every scrap of information i can, watch the build videos, etc, to get myself prepared.
Looking forward to it, even got round to installing a C toolchain on my Debian box to work off a little of the rust. Barber-shop problem anyone?
Gav.
I guess having got a "not all orders will be filled from the batch shipping today" email, that means "my order will not...."?
Disappointing, but I suspect no big deal in the great scheme of things! (To used to instant fulfillment these days, spoiled by itunes, amazon, etc) i shall have to wait and read every scrap of information i can, watch the build videos, etc, to get myself prepared.
Looking forward to it, even got round to installing a C toolchain on my Debian box to work off a little of the rust. Barber-shop problem anyone?
Gav.