Well, here we go.

For those of you who are old pro's at blogging, I'm sorry. I'll get better as time goes by. Not all of my posts are guaranteed to be about robotics, I may ramble on about anything but I am going to try to keep this blog on topic.

This Christmas my wife of almost 11 years bought me a gift that I am very excited about. It will likely provide me hours of entertainment, learning and frustration. It is also likely the fastest way for me to realize a dream of mine. I have wanted to build robots. AI has always interested me, and, until I had a taste of it at work, building an automated machine with a team of electrical and mechanical engineers, I never knew what I had been missing. Since then all of the programming I have done seems flat and missing something.

I am in the process of building through the introductory sets that are provided with the kit to familiarize myself with what I can do. At the same time I am re-igniting the flame that I had extinguished so long ago when the project was over and I had no hope of another project like it (not because of my performance but because the company eliminated the R&D group I worked with and I left for a while to see what the world looked like somewhere else.) I have tried this path once before and slammed into a wall that I have never been able to overcome. I have no idea how to build anything but the simplest electrical circuit. Although I have the desire to build complex systems I can barely read an electrical schematic. This is what stopped my forward progress when I bought my BASIC Stamp last year. It has stopped me every time I have tried. I'm hoping this will not be the case this time. Ultimately I want to build my own sensors and even incorporate other microprocessors in my projects.

I am not able to sleep tonight so I am creating a blog to invite you all into my small downstairs office where I hope to make some robots. Welcome. Your comments are welcome and advice is always appreciated. If you see somewhere that I can improve or somewhere I should research please feel free to comment.