As the title says, we will be exploring and learning basic concepts of robotics in this chapter. We will begin with a basic introduction to robotics, with some definitions and explanations about robotics systems and a little bit of history about robots. Then, we will look into the robotics system structure, just like we did in Chapter 3, Introduction to Physical Computing Systems, regarding physical computing systems. We will take a look at the basic blocks of hardware and software involved in robotic systems, which is similar to our physical computing systems. Then, we will look into their operation, followed by differential drive robots at the end, because we will be building a differential drive robot in the next chapter.
The contents of the chapter are divided into the following sections:
An introduction to robotics
The elements, structure, and operation of robotics systems
Application areas
Differential-drive robots