To go with this book be sure to visit www.scottsbots.com. Here you will find color pictures and additional description of the various robots described in the book. (There might also be an update or two to the software presented in the book).

This is one of the few books around that combine both software (Java in this case) and hardware design. Building working robots require both, and here both are presented, although the real focus of the book is on the software. The hardware is specialty modules that are designed to handle various robotic functions common in modern robotics. These include fairly complex subjects such as speech and vision.

The focus of the book, however is on the software. The hardware items basically are only converters that change sensed input into a stream of bits, or take a stream of bits and then convert them into motion, speech or whatever. Accepting this kind of input and outputting the appropriate control secquences is the subject of this book. It is a book that summarizes currently available components and works with them to make functioning units.

It's a great place to start learning about or working in robotics.