How to learn robotics?

Where can i learn about robotics?

• when i was young i collected the real robots magazine. lately i found my self flicking though the series again and i decided i want to move on from game design to robotics as it is something i find rather interesting. how ever real robots magazine is rather out dated and doesn't have a lot of information on building stuff by your self. so is there anywhere/place/bppk, that can teach me more about robotics, circuitry and electronics? i already know a little about resisters and such from A level physics but nothing much then that..

• Answer:

  Get an Arduino microcontroller board from Radio Shack or online. That's all you need as far as the control side goes. The -easiest- way to do motion control is servo motors, because you don't need anything more than the Arduino, any number of servos, and a battery sufficient to drive the servo. You can get good used/cheap servos at your local aircraft model hobby shop. They'll have a basket of used parts. These are not -bad- servos, but the folks who fly $1000 model airplanes change them out once in a while just for safety/reliability. The RC folks can tell you what size/capacity batteries you need to drive a set of servos for 'x' amount of time. Or it's math that you can figure out. Rechargeable batteries, don't bother with ni-cd (heavy and weird voltage dropoff/memory issues,) or li-po (safety issues - these are only for the RC folks.) Go with li-ion or ni-metal. You'll also need sensors for limit control. That can be small microswitches, or LED interruptors. 'Line tracking' can be done with LED/photocell pairs. Game design and robotics, eh? You can *integrate* the two. Meaning a PC based system that further controls the external hardware. :) The Arduino link below has a lot of basic connectivity tutorials. After that sweep through google for Arduino robotics, servos, and motion control for a million more pages and projects to get you off the ground.