Ask HN: How to get into robotics?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8108513

by productionQA • 12 years ago

2 5 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

So I recently grabbed a vacuum robot off Groupon and the thing literally blew my mind. I have seen videos and played with drones, but this thing did a pretty damn good job cleaning my basement. Needless to say I am impressed. There is a future here. (Not in vacuums, robotics. I know, welcome to the party.)

Let's pretend I had one of those life changing moments where I want to pursue robotics. As a software engineer, what shot do I have?

- How does one get into robotics?

- Do software engineers play a similar roll within robotics firms?

- Is it an easy transition or is there additional education / skills needed?

- Anyone work for one? Is it as exciting as it seems?

Other thoughts in this realm are welcome.

Qworg• 12 years ago

Hi! Practicing roboticist here.

So, there are _lots_ of different parts of robotics you could get involved in. I suppose the first question to answer is "what is your background?" How are your maths (linear algebra, matrix systems, machine learning, etc)? What part of robotics are you interested in? Some examples include perception, mechatronics, motion control, planning, object recognition, system design, and more.

The answers to those questions are necessary to answer the "getting in part" as well as the "easy transition" part.

Software engineers at a robotics firm generally fall into two areas: motion control/industrial programmers and research-like programmers. As you can imagine, the types of tasks motion control/industrial programmers do revolve around getting big industrial robot systems/production systems to dance to their tune, while research-like programmers are generally implementing research-level algorithms on new hardware/firmware/software systems.

I've worked for a few robotics firms in my time and will likely continue to do so. Now is an exciting time to be involved in robotics, especially given the falling cost of hardware.

If you have any more questions or want a follow up conversation, please don't hesitate to hit me up. My email is my profile link.

productionQA2• 12 years ago

Very cool! And thanks for the detailed answer! I may shoot you an email to get some more thoughts.

kephra• 12 years ago

Join a hacker space, and found a RoboCup Junior league team. Junior league is one of the cheapest and easiest classes in robot soccer, and its normal that the kids have adults to help them. evil grin Our hacker space Junior team has good support from B-Human players, who is one of the strongest teams in standard league.

productionQA2• 12 years ago

Very interesting.. I will check it out. Thanks!

psyklic• 12 years ago

Start with Arduino to see if you might enjoy robotics. Arduino is easy to use, reliable, cheap, and there are lots of books on how to make robots with it.

It is "real" electronics -- the skills you learn with it will be directly applicable if you want to try more advanced boards.

Ask HN: How to get into robotics?

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