Second this advice, along with laser-cutting if you have access to a shared workspace with one in your area; take a look, you might be surprised. Electronics h

Second this advice, along with laser-cutting if you have access to a shared workspace with one in your area; take a look, you might be surprised. Electronics had may as well be lego bricks, these days. If you want to make a robot, you can mostly plug together cheap pre-built modules on breadboards. Outfits like Pololu have great options for things like small-scale motor control and DC/DC conversion, and tiny displays/sensors/etc are ubiquitous.