Engineering And Building Robots For Competitions

One of the most hands-on and exciting hobbies and extracurricular activities for students interested in STEM is participating in robotics competitions. This book, newly updated to reflect the latest advances in amateur and professional robotics, including the exploding popularity of the Maker movement, gives readers all they need to enter this competitive and dynamic field. More importantly, readers learn the basics of how to build prize-winning robots, and how to find and enter contests, including local, regional, and national ones.

One of the most hands-on and exciting hobbies and extracurricular activities for students interested in STEM is participating in robotics competitions. This book, newly updated to reflect the latest advances in amateur and professional robotics, including the exploding popularity of the Maker movement, gives readers all they need to enter this competitive and dynamic field. More importantly, readers learn the basics of how to build prize-winning robots, and how to find and enter contests, including local, regional, and national ones.

This book introduces robotics competitions that involve robots competing against one another, performing designated tasks to win a prize and explains that competitions are won by simple ideas that work and by skills that go beyond engineering and science such as teamwork and ability for testing.

An exploration of robotics has never been timelier. In schools, students sign up for robotics clubs and competitions. More and more robotics technology is being introduced in the workplace. Many people are wondering what the future relationship between robots and humans will be. Readers might think building a robot, or becoming the kind of engineer who does, is out of reach. They couldn't be more wrong! This carefully researched volume explains the parts of a robot, how it functions, and its many uses in our world today. It's sure to inspire an appreciation for robotics and the technology of today, and tomorrow.

Personal robots are about as advanced today as personal computers were on the eve of the first IBM PC in the early 1980s. They are still the domain of hobbyists who cobble them together from scratch or from kits, join local clubs to swap code and stage contests, and whose labor of love is setting the stage for a technological revolution. This book will deconstruct the 30 regional winning robot designs from the FIRST Robotics Competition in 2006. The FIRST Robotics Competition (held annually and co-founded by Dean Kamen and Woodie Flowers) is a multinational competition that teams professionals and young people to solve an engineering design problem in an intense and competitive way. In 2005 the competition reached close to 25,000 people on close to 1,000 teams in 30 competitions. Teams came from Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, Israel, Mexico, the U.K., and almost every U.S. state. The competitions are high-tech spectator sporting events that have gained a loyal following because of the high caliber work featured. Each team is paired with a mentor from such companies as Apple, Motorola, or NASA (NASA has sponsored 200 teams in 8 years). This book looks at 30 different robot designs all based on the same chassis, and provides in-depth information on the inspiration and the technology that went into building each of them. Each robot is featured in 6-8 pages providing readers with a solid understanding of how the robot was conceived and built. There are sketches, interim drawings, and process shots for each robot.

The interdisciplinary field of robotics offers its practitioners many practical applications and makes it an exciting, dynamic, and cutting-edge pursuit, especially for young people embarking on their careers. This updated volume discusses the latest advances readers will need to be aware of in preparation for the professional positions of computer scientist, robotics engineer, and robotics technician. Readers will get detailed information and tips on what courses to take now and the ongoing advances in robotics that will determine their future study, internships, and more, including snapshots of luminaries in the field.