Recommended Resources – Books, Magazines, and other good robot related stuff

Since you found your way to this page, you must be as addicted to robotics and experimenting as much as I am, and are always on the look out for good robot and technology books and magazines. You'll find some of my favorites listed below along with comments about the author.

Phillip Torrone is famous for the art of the 'quick and dirty' hack. He takes an old digital camera lying around on the shelf, mashes it with a Radio Shack 555 timer chip ($1.50) and a few wires. In less than an hour he has the camera setup to automatically take endless photos until it runs out of memory space or the batteries run down. The next morning he has the hacked camera taking aerial photos hung from a kite! He writes regularly for Engadget, Popular Science, Make Magazine, and other publications. His articles and book contributions are always interesting, well documented with photos and how-to information, and best of all - they're fun to read even if you don't attempt every one of his hacks.

	Phillip Torrone: Flash Enabled: Flash Design and Development for Devices Flash development applied to the real world! "In Flash Enabled: Flash Design & Development for Devices, a talented group of leading-edge Flash developers describe how to create compelling Flash content for everything from cell phones to TVs to ATMs and more."
	Make: Technology on Your Time The ultimate garage hacker's dream magazine."MAKE brings the do-it-yourself mindset to all the technology in your life and celebrates your right to tweak, hack, and bend your technology to your will. MAKE ignites your ingenuity and connects you with your fellow "Makers."

Myke Predko’s “day job” is managing the server and high performance system tests for Celestica, but in his off hours he’s authored more than a dozen books on a wide range of electronics and engineering topics. Myke is frequently in demand to give presentations for major robotics events, and is known for his ability to explain complex topics in a very simple and easy to understand manner, without dumbing things down for the audience.

	Myke Predko: 123 Robotics Experiments for the Evil Genius (TAB Robotics) A step by step introduction to robotics using inexpensive parts. Walks you through the creation of simple robots and experiments while making the learning process fun.
	Myke Predko: Programming Robot Controllers Myke does an excellent job of covering one of the most difficult and complex aspects of building a robot – how to program the controller and interface your robot to the real world.

My ratings will usually range from to since my mother always told me, "if you don't have anything good to say, keep your mouth shut." So, if I honestly feel that something doesn't at least rate a , I'm not going to waste your time by posting a negative review here.

Note: If you have a favorite book or magazine that you don't see on this list and would like to share it, please feel free to send me the information so I can check it out as a possible addition.

You might also enjoy:

1. Design and Manufacturing Resources – Small quantities and prototypes
2. RoboSapien Gets Naked
3. Robo-One 2005 – Part 5 – This Has To Be Japan
4. Robo-One 2005 – Striking Photo

Posted by Lem on Aug 1, 2005 in Books, Design, Software | 1 comment