Lego Mindstorms and the like

[olanw]

Hello,
I am interested in amateur robotics, but have no real electronics knowledge or previous experience. I am thinking that my best bet to start off with is something akin to the Lego Mindstorms Robotics Invention System 2.0. What other systems like this are out there that can be used to just play around with microcontrollers, drive systems, sensors etc? I don't want a kit like those available from Lynxmotion, but rather something general purpose that I can tinker with and create things. Thanks in advance.

[hlreed]

Most robot systems at this time are one of a kind.
This is about to change, so you will have an interesting time. The common robot design now is to treat the robot like a state machine and to write a program to do everthing for it.
You do not need a lot to do and think about robots. You should learn about sensors and motors, since that is what robots are made of.
Sensors read data from its environment and write data to the robot. Motors read data and act on its environment. Data flows from environment to sensors to robot to motors to environment.
That is what a robot is.
All you have to do to create a robot is to decide its actions. Design motors to do the actions. Then
create sensors and brain to provide the data for the motors.<p>Go to
http://www.halbrain.com<p>Ask for help.<p>[ March 06, 2003: Message edited by: Harold ]</p>