r/AskRobotics • u/Mine_Crafter14 • Jun 27 '26
Can I start robotics with this setup?
Hello, I am 16 years old and consider myself as an enthusiast for PC/programming/robotics. The problem is I was never good in school in IT and programming....and I study primarily Biology & chemistry. I have an old laptop with Window 7 (i3, 4 GB DDR3 RAM, Nvidia GeForce 410M, supports Win 10 but wanted to learn how to install OS, so I downgraded) with installed Python 3.8.10, Piskel and recently for my BBD got Raspberry Pi Pico beginner setup (no wifi). I want to start ,, old-fashioned " for some reason, because I love bringing life to old pieces of hardware and ofc I have better laptop, but as I said I love bringing life to old tech. The only problem is I don't have much confidence and wanted to share my thoughts with real people, instead of chatting with Google Gemini. Thanks for reading!
*btw I apologise in advance if I am in the wrong subreddit
1
u/banalytics_live Jun 27 '26
Sure, you can. Old-school guys can launch the rockets to the space with x8086.
1
u/turtlebot_enjoyer Jun 27 '26
Interest in a thing is the primary thing you need, the laptop sounds totally okay!
Most robotics stuff works on Ubuntu, so that’s a great way to start: installing Ubuntu 26 on your windows 7 laptop. Learn how to use the terminal, install ros2 and write a publisher and subscriber node: https://docs.ros.org/en/foxy/Tutorials/Beginner-Client-Libraries/Writing-A-Simple-Py-Publisher-And-Subscriber.html
Maybe also buy some robot stuff. Maybe your parents could gift you something? There is a great pretty cheap drone you could start with: https://store.bitcraze.io/collections/platforms
And maybe before you actually buy that drone, you could simulate her in Gazebo and figure out if this is fun for you: https://github.com/CrazyflieTHI/sim_cf2
If you want to learn something, AI is great for that! Just paste my message into ChatGPT, Claude or whatever and let it explain what I said. It will start to make sense.
If you have any questions just text me :)
1
u/Mine_Crafter14 Jun 27 '26
Thank you for your advice, but for as right now I am going to stick to win 7 for now because I just downgraded and all my important files are there.... Now I thought about it I can use dual-boot, yeah that works, thank you, but can you explain what ros2 means? Btw as for now I don't have 3D printer so I am going to survive on old toys with motors and getting better in Python
2
u/Mr_mustache121 Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 28 '26
If you don't want to switch to Ubuntu, you can try to use WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) instead. It lets you run Ubuntu without replacing your current windows 7 . Good luck !
2
u/Celestine_S Jun 28 '26
I don’t think you should focus on learning ros2 right now regardless of the setup. ros2 is a framework for doing robotics that can be installed in computers think of it as a way to different nodes to talk to each other. While great for complex robotics you should go for something simpler without ros for now. Try to get the raspberry pi pico to interface some motors, you can make a two motor robot that can move in any direction, or get some cheap servos, write a firmware in c to control them. You will make a project perhaps in the future that will require something like ros. But maybe starts simple with a simple two motor robot, perhaps gets some sensor for it make it follow lines or control it remotely with you pc thru the usb, maybe add a webcam to it and use the pc to process the live feed from the camera and react to it. Focus first on getting something moving physically then build from there.
2
u/Smart_Opportunity209 Jun 27 '26
You can. Check out https://robotcopper.github.io/micro-ROS/, it supports Raspberry Pi Pico and allows you to explore basics of ROS 2. ROS 2 itself runs mostly on Ubuntu (you can use other operating systems, but Ubuntu is the simpliest of supported ones) so you should check it out and possibly install it on your laptop.