Off and running

This is the first endeavor I'm pursing within the realms of mechanics and/or electronics and while I have a huge amount to learn before I could comfortably call myself a roboticist, I believe this is a good starting point. I did start a course in electronics, a little less than 25 or so years ago, but I only attended a handful of classes and I really don't recall much of anything from it. So, basically, I'm starting from scratch.

I'm currently a handyman by trade and with this coming semester (Fall 2010), I'll be restarting my class work towards obtaining my "Advanced Programming Certificate" - with which I find a bit of amusement since I've never truly programmed before taking on these courses! On the flip side of that I consider myself to be fairly intelligent and somewhat creative. I can't draw a straight line with a ruler - and forget about a true circle! - but hardly a week or a month goes by that I don't think of a better way of doing something or coming up with an invention. True, many times I come to learn that "my invention" has been around for some time already or someone else brings it to market after I've conjured it in my own mind, but I know I have a spark of creativity somewhere inside of me, so it's time to let it out! Towards that end I'll be accumulating resources as I work to gain knowledge in pursuit of my robotics goals. Some of them will be hard-copy based but I'm sure many of them will be located on the web, and I'll share links, reviews and whatever other resources that I can that I think would be helpful.

At this point I don't have any set plans as to when I'll work on what, since as I stated this is a new endeavor and it's still in the formative stages, but my plans are to start compiling lists of project actions, components and resources for my first robotics project (which will be a tank-based unit), detailed under my blog's "Robotics.Projects.001.Tank" label. Please feel free to visit and, of course, leave any profanity-free constructive critiques and/or suggestions that you would care to. Thanks for visiting my blog and please accept my well wishes for all that you do!