To get the most out of this book

Before you begin with this book, you need to have programmed a little in a text programming language. I am assuming some familiarity with variables, conditional statements, looping, and functions.

In terms of manual skills, I assume that you can use a screwdriver, that you can deal with occasional fiddly operations, and that you won't be too scared off by the possibility of soldering things.

Please find a well-lit work surface to build the robot on when those sections come, and somewhere to store it where it won't get dropped or damaged.

Download the example code files

You can download the example code files for this book from your account at www.packt.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit www.packt.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.

You can download the code files by following these steps:

1. Log in or register at www.packtpub.com.
2. Select the SUPPORT tab.
3. Click on Code Downloads & Errata.
4. Enter the name of the book in the Search box and follow the onscreen instructions.

Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or extract the folder using the latest version of:

• WinRAR/7-Zip for Windows
• Zipeg/iZip/UnRarX for Mac
• 7-Zip/PeaZip for Linux

The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Learn-Robotics-Programming. In case there's an update to the code, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/9781789340747_ColorImages.pdf.

Code in Action

Visit the following link to check out videos of the code being run:

http://bit.ly/2FLWiIr

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "This creates the myrobot.img file as a clone of the whole SD card in your home directory."

A block of code is set as follows:

import socket
print('%s is alive!' % socket.gethostname())

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

C:\Users\danny>ping raspberrypi.local

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see on screen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: "You'll see two download links, Download Torrent and Download Zip. Click the Download Zip button and save this file."

Warnings or important notes appear like this.

Tips and tricks appear like this.