Hello world! As soon as we say the word robot, thoughts of science fiction start to surround us. We may recall the cartoon serial The Jetsons or think of the movie Terminator. But, as a matter of fact, robots as a species do not belong to science fiction anymore. They are as real as they can get. Look around you and point out any object; it probably wouldn't have been made without a robot. The modern era has been shaped by robots.

But then, you can also take a step back and think, wait a minute, aren't the things he is talking about called machines and not robots? Well, yes, you are very correct, yet very mistaken at the same time. It is cartoons and science fiction that have imparted an image of a human-like robot that is called a robot. But robots are much more than that.

Unfortunately, we do not have a concrete, universally agreed definition of robots, but, as I like to say, Any machine capable of performing physical as well as intellectual tasks can be called a robot.

Now, you may say that, according to my definition, even an automatic washing machine can be called a robot. Well, technically, yes, and why should we not call it a robot? Think of the things it is doing for you and what kind of automation has been adapted over the years. After you feed in the type of cloth it automatically washes, rinses, and dries as you would have done yourself in the 19th century. The point I am trying to make is that there is a huge variation of robots that we can think of, which can radically change the way we live. We need to think with a wider perspective—not just limit robot to look as a human adaption in form of humanoid robots.

We live in the golden era of robotics and automation in which the development of new products is as simple as it can get. What a decade back might have taken a team of engineers, can now be done by a person sitting in bedroom in just a few minutes, thanks to the open source world. At the very same time, there is hardware horsepower available to you by which you can literally build a super computer in your own home with just a few hundred dollars. We are surrounded by problems, some simple and others complex, which are waiting to be solved. The only missing chain in the whole process is you: an innovative mind that has the capability to exploit these technologies to solve the world's problems.

To make your mind capable of doing so, we will be starting of by understanding the roots and the basics of robotics. The goal of this book is not only to make the projects that are mentioned in the book but to make you understand how to exploit the resources to build your dream projects.

Finally, I would like to congratulate you on entering this amazing and futuristic field at the correct time. I always tell my students a rule, which I would like to share with you as well:

What it means is that the earlier in the life cycle you enter any field, the higher in the hierarchy you can get. The later you come, the harder it is to climb to the top.

Enough talking—now let's get straight to business! We will cover the following topics in this chapter: