Reddit reviews Programming Robots with ROS: A Practical Introduction to the Robot Operating System
We found 2 Reddit comments about Programming Robots with ROS: A Practical Introduction to the Robot Operating System. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
O Reilly Media
Hi,
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I recommend this book "Programming Robots with ROS" by O'Reilly, I've PMed you a copy. You can BUY the bat book new on amazon too for only $40 (link).
Once you know how to use ROS, you can quickly pull together other people's code for perception, manipulation, etc. and build stuff quick!! ROS is like lego for robotics. Learn how to search http://wiki.ros.org/ for existing code and hardware for you to integrate with.
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Also, don't do it alone! The other thing that really helped me was joining the closest university/college robotics engineering design competition team. Lookup clubs near you. Even though I wasn't a student, they wanted all the help they could find, so I showed up, offered to help and they accepted! I worked with them for 15 hours a week (sometimes more) for a year. It went really well: https://github.com/danielsnider/ros-rover
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The other key thing is finding the time. I worked part-time, so that I could focus on this on the side, pretty significantly focus.
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Here's my 2 cents on ROS.
No. You technically don't need it to do robotics. At all. I will say however that aside from a set of pretty well maintained software packages and a meta operating system...it's a community and a set of standardizations that the field of robotics is starting to need.
As a roboticist, I don't want to constantly have to write low level controllers if I'm trying to develop higher level deep learning. It's the ability to use tools that conform to a community standard that allows others in the community focus on new and more interesting problems. It's what's holding a lot of progress back...because companies and research groups need to constantly write the same stuff in different ways with every project. It's a waste of time.
That being said. Knowing how to survive without ROS will make you a better roboticist. I say it's akin to a mechanical engineer who can order gears and some smaller mechanisms. I don't want to have to design and machine them every project...I want to build bigger systems.
That being said. This is a book that I have read and can suggest. ROS has a really high learning curve. I struggled for a while at first.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1449323898/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1497723319&sr=8-2&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_FMwebp_QL65&keywords=introduction+to+ros+robotics&dpPl=1&dpID=51edbxoCA8L&ref=plSrch