RoboticsCourseWare.org is a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and self-learners throughout the world.
GearsEds is a company that makes educational robotics kits. Check them out!
IEEE spectrum (http://spectrum.ieee.org) takes you inside Kiva Systems’ robotic warehouse, where orange robots make inventory move instead of workers. Over time the system becomes increasingly efficient, with the robots learning from the wisdom of the crowd.
To read more about Kiva Systems and how their robots work, check out the article at http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jul08/6380.
From their website:
NETWORKS is an Advanced Technological Education (ATE) National Resource Center funded, in part, by the National Science Foundation. We provide venues for creating, sharing, and promoting
digital resources and faculty professional development for semiconductor manufacturing, automation, electronics, and alternative/renewable energies. Our Digital Library contains classroom ready resources that are current, relevant, and easy to implement into your curriculum. We also provide free Online Webinars, TechSpectives Blog, and @matec Newsletter
to keep you up-to-date with emerging technologies and educational issues.
This site also leads to an Electronics and Controls resource page with many great presentations about electronics, PID control, TagNames and many other topics.
I know of two podcasts about robotics:
Watch videos of lectures from top scholars at Academic Earth.
Circuit Cellar Magazine started a new Digital Plus edition of their magazine and is giving the first one away for free. Circuit Cellar magazine is a magazine for the embedded system enthusiasts, and since most robotic use embedded controllers you should check out them out. One note: it is NOT a magazine for the novice!
Now in it’s 16th year, the Trinity College Fire Fighting Home Robot Contest is one of the largest and longest running robot contests in the U.S. and attracts teams from all over the world.
I have not personally competed in this contest, but when I was a member of the Triangle Amateur Robotics Club it was a conversation at many meetings since Ken Boone of Kens Robots fame has competed many times in the contest was a constant presents at the meetings I attended.
Check it out.
I don’t know why someone would want to do this with a robot instead of a CNC machine, but it shows how sophisticated home robots and their control systems have become:
