Chapter 1. Introduction to Robotics

If you read an introductory chapter in any technical book, you may have noticed that it pretty much always follows the same structure. It begins by describing how awesome the topic is, what a good decision it is to start reading the book, and how you should keep on reading because there are many exciting things awaiting you in its further chapters.

This chapter is no such chapter. It starts with the following quote:

Although, such a strong statement does probably deserve some explanation, we believe that after you finish reading this book (and building your own robots!), no further explanation will be needed.

So if robotics is an art, how does one learn it? To put it differently, what are the differences between learning to play a musical instrument, learning to paint, learning to write, and learning robotics? We believe that there are not too many of them. Just as musicians need to play on their instruments, painters need to produce paintings, and writers need to write their texts, roboticists (the term we use to describe people who build robotics) need to build their robots. Just as musicians, painters, and writers need to learn the jargon used in their trades, roboticists need to familiarize themselves with a few basic terms that they might run into while reading tutorials, researching scientific literature, and talking to other robotics enthusiasts. Also, just as any artist needs to know at least a little bit about the history of their respective art, so does any good roboticist need to know a thing or two about the history of robotics. That's why in this chapter, we will cover: