We currently have a backlog of robotics and AI books sent by various publishers and, starting today, we hope to publish a new book review every week or two. Our first, presented here, is a review by Stephen Weis of Junkbots, Bugbots, & Bots on Wheels , a recent book by Dave Hrynkiw and Mark W. Tilden. It's full of great homebrew robot building info on everything from dumpster diving to H-Bridges. Read on!

Review by Stephen Weis

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Title: Junkbots, Bugbots, & Bots on Wheels: Building Simple Robots with BEAM Technology

Authors: Dave Hrynkiw and Mark W. Tilden

ISBN Number: 0-07-222601-3

Publisher McGraw-Hill Osborne Media

Number of pages: 374

List of chapters:
Preface by Mark Tilden
1. Welcome to the World of Simple Robotics!
2. BEAM Safety: Read This Before Building a Robot
3. Identifying Electronic Bits
4. Electronics Assembly Techniques
5. Tools and Mechanical Assembly Techniques
6. Dumpster Diving 101: How to Scavenge Robot Parts
7. Project 1: The Symet: An Introduction to Solar-Powered Robotics
8. Project 2: The Solaroller: BEAM-Style Drag Racing
9. Project 3: The Herbie Photovore
10. Project 4: The Bicore Headbot
11. Project 5: The BEAM Magbot Pendulum
12. Project 6: The BEAM Mini-Sumo Wrestling Edgebot
13. Project 7: The Basic 2-Motor Walker
14. Project 8: An Advanced BEAM Project: Building Intelligent Motor
Drivers (The ABc Bicore by Mark Tilden)
App. A. Resources for More BEAM Information
App. B. Materials and Techniques of BEAM Robotics
App. C. Technical Schematics

This is an excellent book that presents the fundamentals necessary to get started building simple, inexpensive robots. It will serve as an excellent source for beginners, those interested in teaching others, and also provides a few tricks for more experienced builders. The first six chapters provide the basic background necessary to gather the parts and equipment to get started building the robot projects described in the remaining eight chapters. The writing style is relaxed and friendly and encourages the reader to continue exploring the book and simple robotics.

The title is especially appropriate since the projects described can be built with "recycled" (junk) parts and the robots often look like small bugs. The BEAM in the subtitle is an acronym for Biology Electronics Aesthetics Mechanics. One of the reason many people are attracted to BEAM robots is their simplicity. BEAM robots typically employ simple, usually analog, electronics instead of a digital microcontroller brain.

After beginning with a brief introduction to the BEAM philosophy, the authors include a short but very important safety chapter that outlines some precautions that dumpster-diving part grubbers should heed. Appropriate pictures make chapters 3 through 5 read easily - the basics of robot parts and assembly techniques. Chapter 6 provides several examples of places to get free robot parts. This is an excellent chapter and a very important one for those on a fixed budget (like teachers).

The seven project chapters (chapters 7 - 13) are outstanding. Each of them begins with a picture of a completed bot and a parts list. The basic principles behind the operation of that particular bot are then explained. This is followed by detailed assembly instructions with excellent photos of the project at different stages of assembly. Each project chapter concludes with a section on troubleshooting.

The last chapter describes a minimalist, unpredictable H-bridge that looks like fun.

This book is an outstanding introduction to simple robots because it encourages and enables the reader to learn by doing. It also has much to offer those that choose to outfit their robot projects with microcontroller brains - many of the techniques and tricks described in the project chapters can be used to "offload" some of the mundane tasks from the microcontroller making it more efficient and a bit "smarter".

This is an excellent book that will enable beginners, BEAM enthusiasts, and traditional roboticists to learn more about simple robots and have fun doing it. It is well worth the price.