Danny Staple - Learn Robotics Programming - Second Editon

Build and control AI-enabled autonomous robots using the Raspberry Pi and Python

Danny Staple

BIRMINGHAMMUMBAI

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First published: November 2018

Second edition: February 2021

Production reference: 1140121

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Danny Staple builds robots and gadgets as a hobby, makes videos about robots, and attends community events such as Pi Wars and Arduino Day. He has worked as a professional software engineer since 2000, and he became a Python programmer in 2009 with a strong focus on DevOps and automation. Danny has worked with embedded systems, including embedded Linux systems, throughout the majority of his career. He mentors at CoderDojo Ham, where he shows kids how to code, and also used to run LEGO Robotics clubs.

The robots he has built with his children include TankBot, SkittleBot, Bangers N Bash (a lunchbox robot), Big Ole Yellow (more tank tracks), ArmBot, and SpiderBot.

I would like to thank David Anderson for being a great person to bounce ideas off and for his motivational energy. I would like to thank Ben Nuttall and Dave Jones (@waveform80) for GPIOZero, and for helping me out countless times on Twitter. Dave Jones kickstarted my journey into computer vision in a restaurant in Cardiff and is the author of the PiCamera library. Finally, I would like to thank my children, Helena and Jonathan, for their support and patience, even occasionally reviewing diagrams for me.

Leo White is a professional software engineer and graduate of the University of Kent, whose interests include electronics, 3D printing, and robotics. He first started programming on the Commodore 64, then later wrote several applications for the Acorn Archimedes, and currently programs set-top boxes for his day job. Utilizing the Raspberry Pi as a foundation, he has mechanized children's toys and driven robot arms, blogging about his experiences and processes along the way, as well as given presentations at Raspberry Jams and entered a variety of robots into the Pi Wars competition.

Ramkumar Gandhinathan is a roboticist and a researcher by profession. He started building robots in sixth grade and has been in the robotics field for over 15 years through personal and professional connections. He has built over 80+ robots of different types. With an overall professional experience of 7 years (4 years full-time and 3 years part-time/internships) in the robotics industry, he has 5 years of ROS experience. As a part of his professional career, he has built over 15 industrial robot solutions using ROS. He is also fascinated with building drones and is a drone pilot by practice. His research interests and passions are in the field of SLAM, motion planning, sensor fusion, multi-robot communication, and systems integration.

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