Robotics is really three things. There is the mechanical and electronics aspects (called Mechatronics) and then there is a big part which is coding/programming.
Developing your coding skills is a great thing to do between our Robots Group meetings. Here are 3 free website that you can use for playing and learning:
- Scratch
- This is a great place to begin if you are beginning. It is a visual block programming language that is remarkably good.
- There are plenty of video tutorials in even more on YouTube
- Once you understand how it works, your goal is to make a game. You can make one from scratch or use the “look inside” feature to take someone else’s game which you can then modify to make your own version.
- Scratch really is excellent – and great for making your first game.
- Khan Academy
- Khan Academy has a ton of stuff beyond programming. Some Technohackers (myself included) are doing an epic Khan Maths Challenge – which is to complete ALL of the maths skills (from baby stuff through to the end of highschool).
- For coding you will find its “Computer Programming” and “Computer Science” sections great for those who are beginners or those who have done a bit before.
- It focuses on Javascript (plus a bit of HTML and SQL). These are web programming languages. Javascript is a good thing to learn.
- Start at the beginning is my advice.
- CodeAcadamy
- You can also start this as a beginner. Perfectly fine if you have some life experience. I would however suggest this for people who have played with some code elsewhere first.
- View all courses and then look for the Python language one. Yes there are many other things to do there as well, but Python would be a very good pick.
- Python is the swiss army knife of language. One you can pull out and use for just about any problem. From copying and renaming files on your computer through to making a computer game playing (cheating) AI Bot.
Start Now!
Pick something and start learning the skills that will make you seem like a magical master of the universe. If you have somehow burnt your way through those above, come and see me for where to go next. There are so many fun things to learn out there!!! But whatever you do, start it now.
