Who are we - how introduced ?

[donburch]

When did you first get interested in Robotics ?

Was it a robotics club at primary/secondary/uni ?
Maybe a robotics course as part of your degree ?
Or maybe they didn't have robotics courses when you did your degree ?
Maybe your child got into robotics, and you are sharing their hobby ?

I'm sure everyone has a story to tell, and I for one would love to hear it ...

[donburch]

Me, I clicked "other" ;-)

I've been a PC enthusiast for nigh on 30 years, but mostly in commercial programming, and assembling half a dozen PCs over the years.

I guess what pushed me into it are the articles about robots on "Beyond Tomorrow" and the like. I especially remember one used by a medical specialist to do hospital rounds from his office with having to commute every day. Really it was just a LCD monitor and speakers for talking to the patients, webcam and microphone to see/hear the patients, a wireless card and PC, a frame to hold it all ... and a couple of remote controlled motors and sensors to drive it all round with. Total cost "only" $100K. Well I know the cost of the computer components, and somebody has done very well out of making that particular 'robot'.

And I've been looking for a new challenge or hobby. Why not learn some mechanics and electronics, add to my programming, and see what comes of it ? Maybe a new career direction ? Maybe just some fun until a better idea comes along.

Well, that's why I got started. What about you ?

[Dingo]

I too came to it via programming PCs. Always wanted to have the PC control motors to make the train set I had in my childhood better.

Never did get my Amiga500's parallel port to control anything.

I think I finally tipped over when the C/C++ books I was reading crossed into some references to embedded systems. Hence why I usually think of a software solution before a hardware one

[emzed]

I chose the secondary school club option although it wasn't actually a club, it was a subject 'Robotics' that i took in yr8/9. We used lego kits to build simple devices (limited to one motor!) I was given an opportunity to use one of the very early lego dacta computer interface kits. Was soo much fun!
I then changed schools and although they promised they have a robotics course, they didn't. So i was forced to search the web for info. I learnt from scratch how to interface to a computer, using the parallel port etc... and kinda went from there.
Since then my interest in electronics/mechanics/robotics lead me to an Engineering degree (mechatronics) which i completed in 2003.