Comment by hugs
5 days ago
1) Get a 3D printer (or access to one). Or visit your local art supply store (for structural basswood) and hardware store (for nuts and bolts).
2) Get an electronics starter kit. (Adafruit or SparkFun are good places to start looking.)
3) Buy/borrow the book "Practical Electronics for Inventors". You don't need to read it cover to cover, but it's very useful. (Realistically, though, an LLM is probably good enough to explain basic concepts and/or help you pick parts these days.)
4) Build a toy robot with parts you printed (or purchased) and parts from the electronics kit.
5) Once you've built the toy robot, make something bigger! (or the existing one better!)
6) Optional: Find someone to buy your toy robot so you can have the funds to design and build your next one.
I'm reading this and kind of stuck on the 4th. I have a printer though not much of 3D designer. How do one get 3D models for parts that is suitable with SparkFun electronics?
For electronics, all you really need to get started is an Arduino, 3 hobby servos, and a breadboard and wires. The first robot I sold was basically just that. And the physical parts were Lego-Technic compatible laser-cut (later 3D printed) beams. (https://bitbeam.org/, https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:11747)
Start making your own "lego" then go from there. This idea can get you pretty far --> https://bitbeam.cc/en/
This was basis of the robotics company (Tapster) that I started and have been running for over 10 years now: https://www.flickr.com/photos/68386867@N05/7855484076/