FAQ

How much do I need to know about electronics?
Technically you don't need to know anything about electronics if software is your focus; however if you want learn the hardware side here's our 2-cents. If you know the basic stuff like Ohm's Law, what resistors, capacitors, diodes and transistors are, and are can read simple circuit diagrams; then you will do very well. The best book we have found to understand the voodoo behind electronics is Practical Electronics for Inventors by Paul Scherz. It is well worth the cost.

What kind of equipment do I need?
This depends on what you plan to work on. Probably the most important pieces of equipment would be a large breadboard with a stable base, 5-800mA power supply and a digital Multi-Meter. You may also want to consider purchasing a soldering iron which comes in very handy when assembling more permanent circuits on robots.

What supplies should I buy?
For the bread board we'd highly recommend you buy pre-made breadboard wires, it saves a lot of time and headaches. Buy a large assortment of 1/8 or 1/4 watt resistors to have on hand. The rest is really determined by what your project is. But the latter will always come in handy.

Where can I buy parts & supplies?
A great place to buy electronics locally is Stansifer's 1805 South Walnut (336-6339). Identify yourself as a robotics club member and that the purchase is for a robotics project they will take 20% off selected
items. (Unfortunately some stuff like the Jim-paks and other bubble pack items are not allowed the discount, but things like batteries, caps, wire, chargers (and maybe meters) are. If you need to know before you buy
they don't mind if you ask if the discount applies on a particular item.)

If you'd rather you might find it at Radio Shack. If you can't find it locally you should try www.acroname.com , www.jameco.com , or the if-it-exists-they-will-have-it-site www.digikey.com .

What about buying a robot kit?
If you would like to dive right in by buying a kit, go for it! Building a kit is a great way to get your foot in the door, but in our experience, we feel that building one from scratch is a superior learning experience. You just don't learn as much from following instructions as you do going through painstaking process of figuring out the intricacies of each component. Following the latter approach will push you in the adept robotics engineer direction faster.

What microcontroller packages should I consider?
We highly recommend the BasicX-24 package which uses an AVR as its microcontroller. It uses a subset of Basic as a programming syntax that has a generous function library that makes complicated routines easy. The compiler interface is also a snap! You can get one of these up and running within minutes!

Why doesn't this work?!?
Ah this statement is used so often in this hobby that it could be a mantra. Patients, research and tenacity is the golden rule to project success. If you are totally stumped, search www.google.com to see if anyone else has had the same problem. If all else fails, bring your project to the next club meeting. One way or another every problem has a solution!