I like robotics and there was a time when I wanted a career in building robots. I am glad that didn’t happen because now I can build robots for fun. My interest in robots was renewed in 2001 when I discovered LEGO Mindstorms in this IEEE Spectrum article, and since then I had fun with the RCX 2.0 and NXT 1.0 kits.
A couple of years ago, I was introduced to Arduino, an open-source single-board microcontroller, designed to make electronics accessible to students and hobbyists. I had used Arduino to build a few small projects already (more about this elsewhere), but most recently, I found an Arduino-based robot kit of such an attractive price, that I had to buy it immediately.