Arduino Robotic Projects

Good

This book is a 'great getting started with Arduino' book as well as a valuable resource for experienced programmers. It starts out by introducing various flavors of the Arduino board and although it doesn't introduce every single Arduino board (which is impractical really), it does introduce boards at different positions on the processing power and size scales. This is great as it allows the reader to see how to easily decide on which board to use depending on the needs of their project.It develops on the different boards by introducing the Arduino programming environment as well as basic programming constructs such as decision statements and loops. After a base in programming is established it then goes into the meat of the matter, interacting with the outside world. It illustrates this by showing how to control various motors that would be used on a robot, for moving around and manipulating objects, and also how to read various sensors so that your robot can sense the outside world.Once you have the basics of programming your robot and giving it senses and motion you are then taken through how to remotely control and interact with your robot using modern technologies such as Xbee, Bluetooth and WiFi. Information is also provided to allow you to connect your robot to cellular networks. All done using various Arduino shields. Finally the reader is given somewhat detailed examples of robots in various environments such as air, land and sea.This is a great book but advanced Arduino users might find that it contains too much rudimentary stuff. Who knows Packt publishing and Richard Grimmett may soon make available an advanced Arduino Robotics Projects book, that would be awesome.

Maybe I'm thick headed, but I am of the opinion that this book does not bear a title that accurately describes what it is about. This book is much more about and being an introduction to the Arduino family of microcontrollers than it is about robots. While everyone interested by the topic has had to learn how to set up an Arduino at some point, I am of the opinion that with a title such as "Arduino Robotic Projects," readers should be spared chapters that would befit a title as such as "Introducing Arduino." Nonetheless, there are sections that handles techniques specifically linked to building Arduino-driven robots.If you already know how to work with an Arduino, you will likely want to skip the first four chapters as they lead readers to learn what is the Arduino all the way to flashing a LED which is the "Hello World!" of microcontroller programming.From Chapter 5 onwards, the author describes how to connect the Arduino with different devices and sensors. LCD displays are presented in Chapter 5. DC Motors are presented in Chapter 6 and servos in 7. Different sensors, useful to obstacle avoidance, such as ultrasonic sensors and IR sensors are presented in Chapter 8. Chapter 9 is about figuring out the orientation of a project using either a digital compass, an accelerometer/gyro sensor, and/or an altimeter/pressure sensor. Some remote control technologies are explained on Chapter 10. This chapters handles RF tx/rx pairs, XBee tx/rx, Bluetooth and also Wi-Fi. GPS capabilities are demonstrated in Chapter 11. Somewhere around here in terms chapter progression, this book would have benefited from a section dedicated to battery power.Robots per se are demonstrated from Chapter 12. This Chapter demonstrates the basics of building aquatic robots, specifically a sailing robot and an online underwater robot. The robots are flying in Chapter 13, one being an RC plane, the other a quadcopter. Chapter 14 begins with a real hacking project as the author demonstrates how to modify a toy robot by augmenting it with an Arduino and some sensors. Being quite partial to that sort of activities, if find this chapter to be quite neat. The remaining part covers a wearable electronics project, that is some kind of wearable compass powered by an Adafruit Flora.There is quite a bit of robotics hardware presented in this book.My opinion is that the book could have done without the first four introductory chapters and have a stronger focus on things to consider when driving a robot from an Arduino.

I really enjoyed this book as an introductory lecture to the broad capabilities that the Arduino board brings to those willing to learn some low level programming. This book will cover just the surface of all potential projects can be done with Arduino that have a practical use in the field of robotics.If you are wondering how to start, this book will help you a lot to get your feet wet and bring the “hello LED” to life. But it does not finish there, also will guide you through: radio communication (wifi, bluetooth, XBee), environment sensing (sonar or infrared), movement (DC motors and servos), user feedback (displays, LEDs) and the basics of programming with its Arduino IDE (integrated development environment); everything with several pictures to have a general idea of what is happening with the board.Some weak points I could state about the book are that the topics are covered just on the surface and a lot of questions about the wiring might arise, specially with newcomers to the platform. For advance users, the lack of schematics will easily draw them back to seek other options. Something else that could be done better, would be link all the topics together, so at the end of the book, you can have a real and functional robot, described step by step as the reader progresses.Overall, I would recommend this book to get started.

The title should be “Learning Arduino” or something like this because this is the best book I’ve read so far for beginners who want to learn Arduino. The chapters are well-written, everything is clearly explained, images and source code examples are great. The book’s structure is wise and covers everything from choosing an Arduino board to connecting to a Wi-Fi network, using sensors or controlling servos and DC motors. If you want to learn Arduino, don’t hesitate, get this book.

It is a very comprehensive book that includes all kind of devices that you can plug into your Arduino for every robotic project you could develop.It is plenty of diagrams, pictures and code samples.It even includes two chapters for sailing and flying robots.Definitely a must read if you plan to build Arduino based robots.

handy reference

The reading is easy and I got to use the examples to solve practical problems.I recommend that product to the technicians and hobbies.

nice bookexcellent explanations

Very basic projects