Should I start a blog on robotics?

Should I start a blog on robotics? I was very much confused whether I should start writing a blog on such an old beaten topic "robotics". There are thousands of blogs on robotics available on the net. Then why should I write a blog? Then I thought if there are thousands of blog on robotics then lets increase its population by 10 raise to the power 0. :-) Okay leave this question as of now. 

Let me introduce myself first. Well, I am Shivesh Kumar, the author of this blog. I am a second year Mechanical engineering student at National Institute of Technology Karnataka Surathkal. Before joining this institue I was not even interested in technical things. I was more interested in some basic science subjects like physics, mathematics. Even I did not want to join an engineering college. And as we know there is a very little scope for basic science graduates in India so to have better job prospects, a better life in future I decided to join an engineering college like every other non medical science student in the country. Unfortunately I didn't get into a renowned IIT but at last I was end up getting mechanical in NITK Surathkal.

And this story begins at this institute itself. It was the end of October last year when I saw some robotics events at our college's tech-fest "Engineer". I got the feeling of being an engineer. These three words of the tag line of our tech-fest  "Think, Create, Engineer" inspired me very much. I started following all the technical events of our college. I participated in many events but failed. Well that was quite obvious for a lazy guy like me. I have a very bad habit of doing things at the last moment. I don't even start anything before someone puts a rocket behind my ass. So to convince myself that I am a bond I put those events in "peshaab" category[Sorry, only an nitkian can understand this]. I knew I could not learn robotics on my own coz that requires a lot of will power and enthusiasm. Then I got to know about this company ThinkLABS(sexy name na?? and they write IITB behind this makes it more sexier). This company offers a 1 month summer training and internship program in four cities Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Chennai. And fortunately I am a resident of Delhi. So I decided to learn robotics arm from Thinklabs. Though there are many companies in Delhi which offer these kind of programs but I joined thinklabs due to its name & fame[biggest mistake of this summer vacation]. They charged me a fees of Rs.10500/-. Before joining I thought it's not a big amount as they are providing a free robotics kit. Though some of my friends and seniors warned me that its a big amount and this course will not be worth that. But that robotics worm in my head told me, "Look Shivesh go ahead and join this course. The kit should be around Rs.6000 and what if they charge 4500 for teaching extra?" So I joined this course.

Strictly speaking if you want to learn robotics and you are not a student like me then never join such courses. They are a total waste of time and money. I am telling you it's my own experience. Coming to kit they provided, they provided us arm chassis, 3 dc motors[don't ask about quality :-( ], atmega16 development board[OK type], usb programmer[OK type], 3 pairs of encoder discs and encoder modules. They provided us motors that can not even bear the arm's weight[wtf?]. The arm chassis was a total shit. They didn't have a perfect course curriculum. The kit didn't reach on time. Even on the last day we got some parts which were necessary for building the arm. We needed to build an robotic arm[Articulate arm leave it if u dont understand now] having a function of direct kinematics[leave this too]. That arm had not even a chuck/claw to grab things. Their end effector was a pencil tip[U say this robotics?lolz]. Now coming to the scenario in class, the class consist of nearly 40 students majorly from outside Delhi. They were from  different state engineering colleges[No IITian even no NITian except us]. Most were 3rd or final year students all from electronics and communication branch. We didn't get anything in the class as most of the students know already what was being taught and whenever the teacher asked anything they nodded. We were as miserable as a 6th class student sitting in an IIT coaching class. We were the two Einsteins of our class who had just completed their 1st year and are from two branches(mechanical and civil) which have nothing to do with this electronics shit. As the days passed, my interest in robotics evaporated. We passed our time in class by surfing net and abusing this uninteresting robotics sitting at maximum distance from instructor. I was very desperate and was just waiting to get my certificate. This was the scene at closing ceremony of this program. We barely managed to make an arm as per curriculum and the best part of it, it didn't work. The last words from the mouth of our instructor,"This is the last day of this program. So try to program this at your home[wtf why I came here?goddamn it!!]. Do your project and keep in touch. I will provide you online assistance." Oh I forgot to tell you about this so called industry based project, one needs to do a project to get certificate from thinklabs. Me and my friend Parth decided to do something interesting and productive. So we chose to build a card shuffling and dealer robotic arm. At the time of deciding our project we didn't think about the technical difficulties. We just wanted it to be fun. I decided to take the programming part as I studied C++ in 12th grade and my friend took its mechanical design part. I have the feeling of programming but I didn't learn anything in embedded C there. On my way back to home after attending the last class and eating a burger in McDonald's, the robotic worm in my mind again gave me an interrupt,''You wasted Rs.10500, one month of summer vacation here and what are you taking away home? Just this robotic arm model which didn't worked. Now if you need this certificate you need to learn robotics on your own." This robotic worm programmed my mind like this--

while(1)
{
Shivesh you have to learn robotics;
}

So I spent sleepless nights searching about robotics tutorials on the net. My knowledge in this field increased as the nights passed. Some of my achievements were I managed to run stepper motors in steps, run simple dc motors in steps and with any velocity, interface 16x2 LCD display with Atmega16, interface some other input/output devices etc. I learnt everything which I needed to start working on my card dealer. I prepared an algorithm of the program and programmed it. I got success and my program worked after 2 nights of serious debugging. This was my story in which I learnt basics of robotics. Its not the end I am still learning it but now with double enthusiasm.

These are the six reasons why I started this blog--
1) I just wanted to have a blog.
2) I wanted to share what I have learnt.
3) Orient some dummies[please don't take it as an offense] how to get started in the first year of engineering without wasting their much of time & money.
4) Learn something from others.

5) Tutorials for making line follower, intelligent line follower, light follower, micromouse, obstacle avoider, my shit follower & avoider[;-)] blah blah are readily available on internet. But there were very less tutorials on building robotic arm. So I felt the need to start a blog on arm robotics.

6)The information available on net is very vast. It will take you hours to search about your problem and the probability of getting a feasible solution is very low. I will try to teach from very basics. Just follow me, it will be easier for you to learn.

Well my first post ends here. My next post will be--How to get started?..Till then bye bye & take care..
Enjoy this video and get a feeling of being an "Engineer"!!..