Page 36 - Robot Builder's Bonanza

WHY BUILD ROBOTS? 5

Figure 1-2 The modern microcontroller, like
this Arduino, provides an amazing amount of
computational power for controlling a robot.

amateurs to play with microcontrollers, accelerometers, digital compasses, voice control, elec-
tronic gyroscopes, global positioning satellite modules, speech synthesizers, solid- state imag-
ers, vision recognition, tactile feedback, and many other cutting- edge technologies.
What’s more, all of this is available at low cost. The pocket- size microcontroller circuit
board in Figure 1-2 costs less than a dinner for two and rivals the thinking power of the com-
puter that put Apollo astronauts on the moon. (You’ll be learning lots more about this micro-
controller in Chapter 37, “Using the Arduino.”)
Whether you’re a garage- shop tinkerer, a student, or an engineer working for a Fortune
500 company, experimenting with amateur robotics gives you ample opportunity to discover
the technologies the world will be using tomorrow.

ROBOTICS AS A GATEWAY TO A CAREER
Still going to school? Haven’t yet decided what you want to do with your life? Believe it or not,
building a robot can lead the way.
Robotics involves dozens of interconnected sciences and disciplines— mechanical design and
construction, computer programming, psychology, behavioral studies, ecology and the environ-
ment, biology, space, micro- miniaturization, underwater research, electronics, and much more.
You don’t need to be an expert in these fields just to build a robot. You can concentrate
your studies on those things that most interest you, using your robot as a doorway to further-
ing your interests.

ROBOTICS TO THE RESCUE

Science fiction has long painted the robot as evil— either on its own or as the minion of a mad
scientist. Yet it turns out robots may be a way for people to live better, longer lives.

• Robots can venture where people can’t, or don’t want to, go. Send a bot into a collapsed
mine shaft, or to the bottom of the ocean, or to the dusty surface of Mars. It’ll get the job
done, and it doesn’t need air or McDonald’s breaks.
• A bomb- sniffing robot can save the lives of many people. It can locate the explosive and
defuse it much more safely than humans can.
• Robots can act as nurses and doctors, even to those with highly contagious diseases, half-
way around the world.

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