Recommendations
A personal collection of food, books, tools, places, movies and music I keep telling people about.
Books
Modern Robotics — Kevin Lynch & Frank Park
Best treatment of kinematics and dynamics I've found, and it's free online.
The Robotics Primer — Maja Mataric
Great starting point if you're newer to the field.
Tools & Software
ROS2 + Nav2
My default stack for any wheeled robot.
Foxglove Studio
Way better than rviz for debugging sensor data.
KiCad
Free, and good enough for every board I've designed.
Courses
Modern Robotics (Coursera) — Northwestern
Pairs well with the Lynch & Park book.
Self-Driving Cars Specialization — Coursera
Overkill if you're not doing autonomous vehicles, but the perception modules generalize well.
Hardware & Kits
TurtleBot4
Solid platform to learn Nav2 without building a chassis first.
Dynamixel servos
More expensive than hobby servos, worth it for anything with real load.
RPLIDAR A1
Cheapest LiDAR that's actually usable for indoor SLAM.