Preface

We live in a wonderful time where we have access to marvelous chunks of technology that inspire our creativity. The personal computer, smart phone, web cam—all of these make our lives easier, but more importantly, more creative. These new inventions invite us to not only become users, but also developers and creators, adding our own adaptions to the wide range of applications available.

This ability for the average person to become a developer is also true in the robotics world. One of the tools that makes this available is Arduino, a processor board that was built to allow almost anyone to create amazing projects with little cost and even less technical expertise. This small, inexpensive, powerful board has been used in a wide range of projects. With its success, has come an entire community of developers who not only provide help in the area of software development, but also provide hardware add-ons and even new form factors for the processor board itself.

It can, however, still be a bit intimidating to start using Arduino in your projects. This book is designed to help anyone, even those with no programming background or experience, be successful in building both simple but also quite complex robotic projects. The book is designed to lead you through the process step by step so that your robotic designs can come to life.

Hopefully, this book will inspire those with the imagination and creative spirit to build those wildly inventive designs that are swirling around in their heads. One day, robots will be as pervasive as cell phones are today. So, start creating!