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robots
th3thirdman
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
ummm where would I start if I wanted to make a living building robots? I was thinking getting a degree in electrical engineering. any outher thoughts?
th3thirdman on
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For instance, Sarcastro mentioned M.I.T., but seeing as it's an incredibly prestigious school it's not reasonable to suggest it. Georgia Tech, on the other hand, is reasonably inexpensive and has a great Mechanical Engineering program. It also has a reputation for weeding out freshmen by supplying (seemingly) superfluous coursework. It is, simply put, a hard school. One of my best friends attends it and I know he works every day, even on weekends (while this is also the case with me, I don't believe this is normal for most college students in the U.S. - most of my friends have gone to ivies, small L.A.C.'s, Georgia Tech, or a community college where they allegedly have little to no homework).
That was probably a bit more information than what you needed. There are several majors you can get, but I know that if you want to work with robots, you can't go wrong with Mechanical Engineering. Check out princetonreview.com, it has a great career center with information on what majors you should look at depending on what kind of job you'd like to have (I'm guessing you're in high school; if that is the case, now is a great time to be looking at that website).
If you do electronics or mechanics, you will learn a significant portion of what you need to know. As Sarcastro says its a huge field, and I'd imagine robotics people get hired for their prowess in one or maybe two of three fields (Electronics, Mechanics, Software) and then put together to make the magic happen.
If you want to be a cradle to grave sort of guy I would suggest computer engineering as you will be taught how to program your robot as well as the nuts and bolts of Electrical Engineering theory on making it. Manufacturing the parts and assembly would require a great deal of Mechanical Engineering background which may be hard to achieve with a major in CompE.
Much of robotics is focused in programming of course, so a degree in Computer Science or Computer Engineering may be what you wish to pursue instead. Of course, I think, most Electrical Engineering degrees require some kind of programming knowledge to go with their electronics course work, but you will also learn about Electricity and Magnetism, Power, semi-conductor physics, optics, etc. Those fields may not be of interest to you so you will have to probe your prospective college/uni course catalog to see what you must to take for your degree.
In all honesty your best bet is to Google the DARPA Urban Challenge and then see what schools are involved in that program. I say this because there is a good chance they will have courses pertaining to robotics in an effort to pull undergrads into their work force for the program. Additionally, if you are in high school still look up FIRST Robotics and try to join it if your school has a program or maybe even bring it to your school. Their competitions are also fun, so maybe attend one if they are near by and talk to the dudes and dudettes who built the robots.