Useful Bot-Building References

Karl Lunt's Homepage

Web Site: www.seanet.com/~karllunt

Karl Lunt is well known in the hobby robotics community. He's written numerous articles for Nuts & Volts (see Chapter 11) and has written several books on robots. His home page has a lot of useful information and downloadable software tools for various types of robot microcontrollers.

How Stuff Works

Web Site: www.howstuffworks.com

If you're endlessly curious about how the world works, this site can help feed your engineer's soul. It covers all types of physical world mechanics (cars, electronics, science), and has now branched out to the soft sciences, covering subjects such as government, entertainment, and economics. It's a great place to start your investigations into any newfound interest.

MatWeb

Web Site: www.matweb.com

A materials composition database that has data (density, tensile strength, melting point, electrical properties, and so forth) on pretty much every kind of metal, plastic, composite, and ceramic. You can search on material type, the manufacturer, the trade name, and other variables.

NASA Tech Briefs

Web Site: www.nasatech.com

Since the 1970s, NASA has offered a free monthly magazine to qualified subscribers within the business, scientific, and engineering sectors. Now you can also view the magazine's content, and other materials via its Web site. The idea of Tech Briefs is to share innovations from NASA with the rest of the engineering world. There's a lot of material on lasers, fiber optics, computer-aided design and manufacturing, new materials sciences, and other cutting-edge technologies—and, of course, robots. You can also subscribe to a series of electronic newsletters covering specific technologies.

The Robot Room

Web Site: www.robotroom.com

This site, run by Dave Cook (author of Robot Building for Beginners) is a treasure trove of useful information, inspiring ideas, and robot building tips. Definitely worth a visit.