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Robotics is a growing field with applications in manufacturing, science, medicine, law enforcement, military, and likely to spread. You can start at a young age learning about robots by buying pre-made kits from such places as Lego Mind Storms, Budget Robotics, Lynxmotion. You can also buy robots with simple applications that you can use to develop your eye-hand coordination and have fun. Useful skills to learn are welding and an electrical kit with various electrical components, tools and measurement equipment can be a handy way to learn the basics.

Robotics, however, is a field that requires advance education in order to qualify for a position at most robotics companies. To prepare yourself for additional education, during high school you should take math and physics classes to make sure you're ready to go. Good grades help when getting into college as do good scores on your SAT test.

Three Paths to A Robotics Career

Most Robotics jobs require advanced education beyond high school. Depending on your interests and level of commitment, you might want to consider one or more of these three different paths to start your Robotics career : robotics technician, electrical engineer, computer programmer.

Robotics Technician

A robotics technician is taught how to maintain robots in service. They learn how to keep the mechanical operations serviced, i.e. joints moveable and feed lines rolling. They also learn how to diagnose and fix electrical problems within the robots functioning. Another task is learning how to manage upgrades of software and related problems with the software. CADD/CAM use, For example, if the robot hangs in mid operation.

Computer Science

Skills that you acquire as part of the computer science degree include logic, programming on operating systems that support higher-level languages such as C, C++, Ada, mainframe assembler code and on microprocessors. You learn to program modularly or object-oriented and in a variety of computer languages because the application requirements may vary from place to place.

Electrical Engineer

Electrical engineers learn about electronics, control systems, power, signal processing and telecommunications. Engineers learn how to design and build electrical systems.

Step Two in Beginning a Robotics Career

Get a Masters degree or Doctorate in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering with an emphasis on Robotics to expand your skills beyond the basics and grow into research areas where new developments are made in the interesting field. Robotics programs teach a variety of things including advanced applications in interfacing microcomputers, control interfaces, artificial intelligence, optimal decision making, robotics vision and embedded systems.

[1] http://www.depts.ttu.edu/abile ne/cs/

[2] Absolute Beginner's Guide to Building Robots

[3] http://careers.stateuniversity .com/pages/372/Robotics-Techni cian.html

Learn more about this author, Sheri Fresonke Harper.
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