JavaScript Robotics: Building NodeBots with Johnny-Five, Raspberry Pi, Arduino, and BeagleBone (Make) 1st Edition

I'm a bit surprised I'm the first person to review this book. I randomly came across it when I was searching for the latest in robotics. For me, it's a pretty good fit. I have the basics down with electronics and am very solid in software. Each chapter is a completely different project, probably written by a different person. So some chapters are more detailed than others. Fortunately the pictures on the Kindle book fill in any ambiguities.I've come to realize that robotics is expensive. So instead of doing each project in the book, I picked a few that interested me and didn't cost too much in components. I completed the piDuino and Deltabot project. There were a few minor issues here and there (e.g. the example code crashes since some updated library has a bug), but I worked around it. The deltabot is really neat. I've extended it with the RasPi to have a web sockets interface, which can have a smart phone input display.

The Make series of books have all been good. Thus one served to broaden my personal knowledge of robotics.

Usually coding for robotics tutorials have been motor.left, motor.right, and not very innovative. Coding has been very basic and not offering potential to move up your coding skills.This book takes coding to a whole new level. Recommended if you want to take your coding to a new level.

This book is loaded with ideas. The very first chapter provides a thorough introduction into what javascript-based robotics is all about. Essentially, a framework called Johnny-Five is the guts of the process. The Arduino board is flashed with Firmata, a sketch that enables the process, and then javascript code using the Johnny-Five API, runs on the Arduino. The book provides several other examples of javascript-based robots. There's even a detailed overview of how to run the scripts over WiFi, thereby releasing the Arduino from its USB tether. For anyone who likes tinkering with Arduino and small robotic projects, this book is a gateway to new ideas and methods. Highly recommend!

Images stopped showing up half way through which made it tough to follow the examples later in the book .

It's my first time building a bot and this has been a good entry point, saving me a lot of googling to figure things out. I am building a bot with my daughter and didn't want to be stuck trying to figure out basics. One advice, nothing to do with the book, when buying the components -if you're anxious to get started order them based on delivery date... I have had a project held up because I am missing 1 component that's taken longer than expected to deliver.

must have if you get a Johnny-Five Robotics Kits - eBooks are great, but nothing substitutes for paper for offline projects and things...

Still evaluating to determine which projects I want to build