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Had a recent conversation with nephew about his robotics study, and it seems he’s overwhelmed with ROS, OpenCV, Python, AI transformers tutorial hell. Told him

Had a recent conversation with nephew about his robotics study, and it seems he’s overwhelmed with ROS, OpenCV, Python, AI transformers tutorial hell. Told him we should go together to industrial expo - starting from 3d printing, molding, material science and robotics and spend some time together to hack into hard core C++ SDKs used by big tech like Nvidia and Co, and look how to developed linear algebra and statistic on real life examples. His dream is to automate small mid business manufacturing, and become a Steve Job like figure one day. What’s the good information and resources to follow and educate about real life robotics? Any tips or even sarcastic comments are welcome. Please help to be a cool uncle ;)

puffybunion 2y ago
Can someone that hasn't achieved Steve Jobs' accomplishments show you the way to them? Perhaps you should gift him a biography about Steve Jobs.
- adeptima 2y ago
  I knew the guy who worked with Jobs and hated him with passion. Let's keep the useful image parts. “How many of you are from manufacturing companies?” [Some hands go up.] “Oh, excellent. Where are the rest of you from? Okay, so how many are from consulting?” [A number of hands go up.] “Oh, that’s bad. Yeah, the mind is too important to waste—you should do something.” “I think that without owning something over an extended period of time—like a few years—where one has a chance to take responsibility for one’s recommendations, where one has to see those recommendations through all action stages, accumulate scar tissue for the mistakes, pick oneself up off the ground, and dust oneself off, one learns only a fraction of what one can.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk-9Fd2mEnI&t=184s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk-9Fd2mEnI&t=184s
- exe34 2y ago
  I don't think a lot of Olympics gold medalists are taught by former Olympics gold medalists. Most teachers never go on to accomplish what their students achieve. I think OP has a fair chance of giving the nephew a great start - and whether that leads to Jobs level of accomplishments will depend on perseverance and luck.
spieswl 2y ago
It sounds like your nephew has a project in mind. Start there with the basic dependencies and that will start laying out a competency roadmap which looks a lot like a curriculum. Quick aside: Automate small/mid business manufacturing? Admirable, but will probably choke on the scale problem, so I think the journey will be vastly more interesting than the destination...which is good! Turns out there's a lot of robotics that can be broadly applied. * Manufacturing --> robotic manipulation, controls, actuation, sensing, decision-making ** Robotic manipulation --> Linear algebra, likely Python and/or C++, some simulation tools ** Controls --> Manipulator platform, drivers, physical- and protocol-level choices ** Actuation --> You want to pick something up right? Air powered? Electric? Probably not hydraulic, but worth mentioning? ** Sensing --> What's your sensor suite? RGBD? LIDAR? Forces-torques? Combination of the above? ** Decision making --> FSM? Behaviour trees? Purely functional? Repeat the decomposition and you'll probably be able to get down to the basic level of the robotics hierarchy of needs.
- adeptima 2y ago
  Wow, great roadmap! Will decomposition more. Thank you
lnsru 2y ago
I also wanted to automate everything. Even got a mentor who brought me back to reality. Basically robot must be available 99,9999% of the time. One unsuccessful operation in 5 year of usage without maintenance. With less it makes no sense to automate because handling a production line incident might be very expensive.
- piloto_ciego 2y ago
  This doesn’t really follow… It largely depends on what you’re automating, no? That standard seems absurd.
syntaxing 2y ago
"3d printing, molding, material science and robotics " sounds like a Mechanical Engineering degree. I'm serious, I learned everything you're talking about and more. Probably hubris, but I'm pretty sure I'm well equipped to start a hardware company if I really wanted to (Not sure what business manufacturing means though, as in he wants to start an "Integrator" company or a contract manufacturing company?). As for an Expo, I highly recommend ATX West show in a couple weeks. Depending on your employer, you probably could get it covered by your job and have your nephew come along. (Was a Design MechE for a decade or so, but I'm a SWE now)
- adeptima 2y ago
  Noted on ATX West show. Thank you!
corysama 2y ago
Show him the work being done by Hadrian for inspiration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cbayQAuvvw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cbayQAuvvw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye7m8VjKcrE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye7m8VjKcrE That “S3” channel has a lot of great content about physical tech startups. 3Blue1Brown and Khan Academy are great places to learn math of all sorts.
- adeptima 2y ago
  Thnx for input! Will check video!

puffybunion 2y ago

Can someone that hasn't achieved Steve Jobs' accomplishments show you the way to them? Perhaps you should gift him a biography about Steve Jobs.

adeptima 2y ago
I knew the guy who worked with Jobs and hated him with passion. Let's keep the useful image parts. “How many of you are from manufacturing companies?” [Some hands go up.] “Oh, excellent. Where are the rest of you from? Okay, so how many are from consulting?” [A number of hands go up.] “Oh, that’s bad. Yeah, the mind is too important to waste—you should do something.” “I think that without owning something over an extended period of time—like a few years—where one has a chance to take responsibility for one’s recommendations, where one has to see those recommendations through all action stages, accumulate scar tissue for the mistakes, pick oneself up off the ground, and dust oneself off, one learns only a fraction of what one can.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk-9Fd2mEnI&t=184s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk-9Fd2mEnI&t=184s
exe34 2y ago
I don't think a lot of Olympics gold medalists are taught by former Olympics gold medalists. Most teachers never go on to accomplish what their students achieve. I think OP has a fair chance of giving the nephew a great start - and whether that leads to Jobs level of accomplishments will depend on perseverance and luck.

spieswl 2y ago

It sounds like your nephew has a project in mind. Start there with the basic dependencies and that will start laying out a competency roadmap which looks a lot like a curriculum. Quick aside: Automate small/mid business manufacturing? Admirable, but will probably choke on the scale problem, so I think the journey will be vastly more interesting than the destination...which is good! Turns out there's a lot of robotics that can be broadly applied. * Manufacturing --> robotic manipulation, controls, actuation, sensing, decision-making ** Robotic manipulation --> Linear algebra, likely Python and/or C++, some simulation tools ** Controls --> Manipulator platform, drivers, physical- and protocol-level choices ** Actuation --> You want to pick something up right? Air powered? Electric? Probably not hydraulic, but worth mentioning? ** Sensing --> What's your sensor suite? RGBD? LIDAR? Forces-torques? Combination of the above? ** Decision making --> FSM? Behaviour trees? Purely functional? Repeat the decomposition and you'll probably be able to get down to the basic level of the robotics hierarchy of needs.

adeptima 2y ago
Wow, great roadmap! Will decomposition more. Thank you

lnsru 2y ago

I also wanted to automate everything. Even got a mentor who brought me back to reality. Basically robot must be available 99,9999% of the time. One unsuccessful operation in 5 year of usage without maintenance. With less it makes no sense to automate because handling a production line incident might be very expensive.

piloto_ciego 2y ago
This doesn’t really follow… It largely depends on what you’re automating, no? That standard seems absurd.

syntaxing 2y ago

"3d printing, molding, material science and robotics " sounds like a Mechanical Engineering degree. I'm serious, I learned everything you're talking about and more. Probably hubris, but I'm pretty sure I'm well equipped to start a hardware company if I really wanted to (Not sure what business manufacturing means though, as in he wants to start an "Integrator" company or a contract manufacturing company?). As for an Expo, I highly recommend ATX West show in a couple weeks. Depending on your employer, you probably could get it covered by your job and have your nephew come along. (Was a Design MechE for a decade or so, but I'm a SWE now)

adeptima 2y ago
Noted on ATX West show. Thank you!

corysama 2y ago

Show him the work being done by Hadrian for inspiration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cbayQAuvvw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cbayQAuvvw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye7m8VjKcrE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye7m8VjKcrE That “S3” channel has a lot of great content about physical tech startups. 3Blue1Brown and Khan Academy are great places to learn math of all sorts.

adeptima 2y ago
Thnx for input! Will check video!