Robotics Project Hub

Learning guides / Start from the mechanism

Robotics tutorials for understanding, not memorizing

Focused guides that connect the theory to a real algorithm, circuit decision, or interactive simulator. Each one is self-contained and links to the lab where you can try it.

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8051 3Algorithms 5Arduino 12Autonomous Robots 1Autonomy 3Calibration 3Communication 2Computer Vision 1Control Systems 7Electronics 3Encoders 2ESP32 2Filtering 1I2C 1IMU 2Kinematics 5Lidar 1Line Following 1Mapping 1Mechanical Design 1Microcontrollers 3Middleware 1Mobile Robots 4Motion Control 1Motion Planning 1Motor Control 3Navigation 4Obstacle Avoidance 1Odometry 3OpenCV 1Path Planning 3PID 3Pose Estimation 1PWM 3Raspberry Pi 1Robot Arms 2Robot Software 3ROS 2 5Sensors 13Servos 2Setup 1SLAM 1State Machines 1Stepper Motors 1TF2 1Tuning 1Ultrasonic 1Wireless 2

Beginner · 30 min

8051 Architecture: Pins, Memory Map, and Registers

Harvard core, four ports, 256 bytes of RAM, and timing you can count in machine cycles.

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Beginner · 20 min read

Build a Line Follower Robot: Sensors to PID Steering

From IR reflectance sensors to a weighted error to smooth PID steering—how a line follower actually works.

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Intermediate · 15 min read

LSRB Path Simplification for Line Maze Robots

Record turns as L, S, R and B, then collapse every dead-end detour into the optimal route.

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Beginner · 28 min

8051 GPIO and Port Interfacing: Sink, Don't Source

Why 8051 LEDs are wired backwards, why you write 1 before reading, and what a port can drive.

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Intermediate · 35 min

8051 Timers and Software PWM for Motor Control

Build PWM from a Timer 0 interrupt, pick the frequency-resolution trade, and drive an H-bridge.

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Intermediate · 35 min

Lidar for Robots: What a Scan Gives You and How It Becomes a Map

A scan is not a snapshot: sampling gaps, motion smear, and the ray casting that turns range data into a map.

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Intermediate · 45 min

From cmd_vel to Wheel Speeds: ROS 2 Differential Drive

Convert a Twist into left and right wheel speeds — kinematics, saturation, deadband, and a watchdog.

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Beginner · 1 hour

Install ROS 2 on a Raspberry Pi and Build a Workspace

Choose the OS, install ROS 2 from apt, build a colcon workspace, and get a laptop talking to the robot.

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Intermediate · 40 min

Motion Profiles: Trapezoidal and S-Curve Acceleration

Ramp a move instead of commanding it — trapezoidal profiles, jerk limits, and what S-curve actually costs.

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Intermediate · 25 min

Robot Arm Types: Cartesian, SCARA, Delta and 6-Axis

Four architectures compared by workspace, stiffness and speed — and the kinematics duality between them.

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Beginner · 1 hour

Control a Robot Over Bluetooth With an HC-05 Module

Pair an HC-05 with your phone and drive a robot over Bluetooth serial, without the classic 5 V mistake.

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Advanced · 2 hours

Cascaded PID Control for a Self-Balancing Robot

Two nested PID loops: one holds the tilt angle, one asks for a lean so the robot can go somewhere.

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Intermediate · 1 hour

Complementary Filter: Fusing Accelerometer and Gyro Data

Fuse a noisy accelerometer with a drifting gyro into one trustworthy tilt angle, in a single line of code.

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Intermediate · 1.5 hours

Drive a Robot From a Browser With an ESP32 Web Server

Serve a control page straight from an ESP32 so any browser can drive the robot — no app needed.

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Beginner · 45 minutes

Reading Tilt Angle From an MPU6050 Accelerometer and Gyro

Turn raw MPU6050 counts into a tilt angle in degrees, and learn why neither sensor works alone.

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Intermediate · 1.5 hours

Wall Following and Precise Turns for a Maze Robot

Stay centred between walls, and turn exactly 90° — the two skills a maze robot lives or dies by.

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Intermediate · 14 min read

Detecting Line Maze Junctions With an IR Array

Classify T, cross, left, right, dead end and finish from a reflectance array, and resolve the ambiguous cases.

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Intermediate · 18 min read

Drive Servos with the PCA9685 (I²C PWM Driver)

Set the frequency, turn angles into pulse widths, and move sixteen servos from two I²C pins — safely powered and calibrated.

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Beginner · 22 min

The Obstacle-Avoidance Algorithm: Sense, Scan, Decide, Turn

The sense–scan–decide–turn loop that lets a robot avoid obstacles on its own.

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Beginner · 20 min

Read an HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Sensor: Reliable Distance in Code

Turn ping-and-echo into a steady distance in cm—with a timeout and a median filter.

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Beginner · 18 min

Servo-Scan an Ultrasonic Sensor to Find Open Space

Sweep an HC-SR04 on a servo to find the clearest direction before you turn.

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Beginner · 20 min

Read an IR Reflectance Sensor Array for Line Following

Turn a row of IR sensors into a single, smooth line position you can steer on.

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Intermediate · 21 min read

A* Path Planning on an Occupancy Grid

Build and validate an A* grid planner with safe heuristics, obstacle inflation, and route reconstruction.

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Intermediate · 22 min read

Camera Calibration and ArUco Pose with OpenCV

Calibrate camera intrinsics, validate reprojection error, and estimate an ArUco marker's 3D pose.

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Beginner · 18 min read

Control DC Motors with PWM and an H-Bridge

Wire and control a brushed DC motor safely using PWM, an H-bridge, and realistic current limits.

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Intermediate · 20 min read

Differential-Drive Odometry from Wheel Encoders

Integrate left and right wheel motion into a mobile robot pose, then identify and calibrate drift.

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Beginner · 17 min read

Finite-State Machines for Robot Behavior

Replace tangled robot conditionals with explicit states, events, transitions, timeouts, and recovery.

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Beginner · 17 min read

Read Quadrature Encoders for Distance and Speed

Turn quadrature encoder pulses into reliable wheel direction, distance, and velocity measurements.

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Beginner · 19 min read

ROS 2 Nodes, Topics, Services, and Actions

Choose the right ROS 2 communication pattern and inspect how nodes exchange robot data and commands.

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Intermediate · 20 min read

ROS 2 TF2 Coordinate Frames for Mobile Robots

Build and debug a TF2 frame tree from map and odom through the robot base to each sensor.

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Intermediate · 21 min read

SLAM, Mapping, Localization, and Odometry Drift

Connect odometry, range sensing, mapping, localization, scan matching, drift, and loop closure.

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Beginner · 18 min read

Ultrasonic vs Time-of-Flight Robot Sensors

Choose, mount, calibrate, and test ultrasonic or time-of-flight sensors for obstacle detection.

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Advanced · 22 min read

Inverse Kinematics of a Two-Link Robot Arm

Why a two-link arm has two solutions, where it can and cannot reach, and what a singularity really is.

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Beginner · 18 min read

How to Tune a PID Controller: A Practical Guide

A hands-on order for tuning P, I, and D gains without the guesswork—and how to try each step live.

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Intermediate · 16 min read

Flood Fill Maze Solving for Micromouse Robots

How flood fill turns a partly-known maze into a distance field a robot can descend to the goal.

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Beginner · 17 min read

Sensor Noise, Bias, and Filtering in Robotics

Noise vs bias vs drift, choosing a filter without over-smoothing, and what sensor fusion can and cannot do.

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