Well I picked the soldering iron in my hand since birth. Making hacks and mods is where all the fun is. Turning trashed electronics into a robot is the life for me and adding new features to the WowWee robots as well. I just wish that WowWee would provide a flowchart or even better the schematics for the bots we work on. Since we do not have these it makes us work just that much harder to grab the firmware, dissemble it into assembly language then create a flowchart from that and getting a timing chart as the last step. For those just starting in this field really the simplest hack is adding LEDs to their bot and makes it harder to really learn how to hack without spending a lot of time an money on electronic books and hacking books. What we need here in our community is more advance hacking tips or even a basic electronics learning thread. I am willing to start one if there are others out here that can also help out by adding simple yet advanced schematic hacks. If we have enough interest I'll set one up for everyone.

Jax

GWJax, To Hack and make mods on robots is a life style and comes natural and not by choice. If a robot has a screw to open it then it must be opened!

OK Commander, I'll start at the basics of learning electronics and will add a little at a time so it does not overwhelm everyone. There is so much to learn and not just electronics but how to make and form the body shells and using parts from old electronic junk "But this is GOLD to us" I'll start getting my nuts and bolts together and get that thread started this weekend.. Plus once this thread is started anyone can add their knowledge as well but just stay on the topic until a new part is added.

Jax

GWJax, To Hack and make mods on robots is a life style and comes natural and not by choice. If a robot has a screw to open it then it must be opened!

Very interesting and I am also willing to do such mod thing.

My goal is to turn Rovio to be a general platform of robot development and ultimate possibility can be there, then.

RovioBrighter - brighter your Rovio!
http://www.robocommunity.com/download/17526/RovioBrighter/

My interest stems from repairing toys but extends to modding/hacking.

My first little robotic toy as a young boy was robotic dog. Sort of a fury thing with a wired remote and three buttons.

The dog would walk forward, stop and beg, and make a mechanical "bark" sound.

I loved it!

On day it quit working. I took it apart and found a wire connection broken. Showed it to my dad and he said "It's shot Can't fix that. Toss it".

I could not accept that and wrapped the wire around the post as best I could and kept my doggie.

A few years later I discovered solder.

=:-)

Intro: Currently a spacecraft tech; at 7, dedicated life to bringing domestic robots to reality, at 22 started building mass production equip for first product, at 23 business destroyed by gov regulation changes, which is why you now buy from Japan instead of me 25 years ago.
Hope: circumvent regulations by transplanting modern parts into full size body to make workable domestic servant. Can't go entrepreneurial again, though.
But some of the technologies I developed are still needed if someone wants to supersize their "mod" to do real work -- like a thigh-size all-fuel kilowatt power generator?
Thread contribution: Let's not reinvent the tutorial wheel!
The best sources of electronics knowledge & skills are on the net.
Soldering: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_NU2ruzyc4
Theory: http://www.electronicstheory.com/html/e101-1.htm
Software Design: Starting Forth/Thinking Forth by Leo Brodie are based on an arcane language, but the concepts in these two books will make a programming genius of anyone with almost any language! (http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?binding=&mtype=B&keyword=starting+forth+bro...
Let those RoboAmbitions fly high!!!