I’ve read a lot of books about building robots and Robot Builder's Bonanza has to be the most complete. It claims to be the ‘bible’ of hobby robotics and I’m not sure if it is actually affiliated with the Catholic church but amongst the robot following it is definitely widely read. The original author the series is Gordon McComb and although his name is rightly still on this newest edition (3rd), all the new material comes from the pen of Mike Predko. The books main strength is its great ability to explain the basics of building robots without losing the reader in technical jargon or worse being patronising in its explanations. Some robotics books on the market spend most of their pages pushing a particular robot kit or programming software package from a particular vendor. This in my opinion not the best way to learn robotics as you get stuck knowing about one particular system and your overall knowledge suffers. Also these kits tend to be over priced and dated so its not good for your wallet either. Robot Builder’s bonanza avoids this downfall and instead tries to cover all areas that robotics encompasses in a manner that is not achieve by other books. That’s not to say it doesn’t have projects you can follow along with, in fact it boasts over 99 robot projects. How does it manage to cram all this in you might ask? a massive 725 pages of robot making goodness is your answer.
The following areas are covered in the book are
The third edition chooses to work with basic stamp microcontroller for all the code examples and while I’d prefer the Arduino, it is a quality product and the code is easily to read and transferable to whatever microcontroller you choose for the brain of your robot. Every aspect of robotics is covered is some manner and often in detail. It is guaranteed get the creative juices flowing and turn you from beginner to a card carrying robot maker.
It’s a book you will come back to over and over again. Whole heartedly recommend by robots.ie!
The forth edition is NOW available Robot Builder's Bonanza, 4th Edition
Third Edition links
You can buy it from amazon.co.uk: here
or buy it from amazon.com: here
