Other Links to Information on Mechatronics

Here are links to other information on mechatronics that I hope will help you find what you are looking for or help you explore the subject. The links below are by no means exhaustive. If you come across others that you think should be listed here or find any broken links, please let me know.

Design resources

  • Dr. Lee's list of suppliers Prof. Lee's list of suppliers for engineering products and services, including MEMS and lab supplies
  • Goodfellow Metals, alloys, ceramics, polymers, plus detailed technical data
  • Grainger large supplier of mechanical, maintenance, and industrial supplies
  • McMaster-Carr large supplier of mechanical, maintenance, and industrial supplies
  • MFG.com the largest global online marketplace connecting manufacturers and buyers of manufactured items
  • Online machine shop Makes your custom parts completely via the Internet. Low cost and convenient.
  • ExpressCNC Another online machine shop. Also has links to free CAD software and surplus hardware
  • Silicon Valley surplus information listing of Silicon Valley surplus dealers, swapmeets, etc.
  • The Electrical Resource an electrical construction resource
  • The Thomas Register exhaustive listing of US manufactures for virtually everything
  • Zycon a new online industrial directory, engineering resource, and vertical search engine
  • Industrial Quick Search Directory a comprehensive manufacturers directory
  • Where to find things good list of places to get things for prototyping and projects (from Stanford University's Product Realization Laboratory)

Electronics resources

Magazines

Mechatronics conferences

Mechatronics education

Mechatronics in general

Microcontroller resources

Don't miss valuable information from the manufacturer's web sites

  • AVRfreaks web site the "official" site for Atmel AVR aficionados
  • Handy Board web site the official site for the Handy Board, a 68HC11-based controller board designed for experimental mobile robotics work developed at MIT
  • Handy Board Mail List Archive a focused discussion group for the Handy Board device: distribution of information of any sort about obtaining, debugging, or using the Handy Board design; troubleshooting problems; exchanging ideas and techniques; sharing code; etc
  • Microchip manufacturer of the PIC microcontroller family
  • Micromint a leading supplier of single-board computers and industrial embedded controllers
  • Mini Board web site a single-board computer, about the size of a business card, optimized for controlling small DC motors and receiving data from various electronic sensors developed at MIT
  • Motorola manufactures a broad range of microcontrollers (including the 68HC11 chip we use in the lab)
  • Parallax lots of information on the Basic Stamp, a PIC-based microcontroller
  • Roger's Embedded Microcontroller Page a super source of information for those interested in the Motorola MC68HC05, MC68HC11 and MC68HC12 microcontrollers
  • Sparkfun Electronics offers a good selection of prototyping hardware and tutorials relating to electronics and microcontrollers.
  • The MicrocontrollerShop.com claims to be, "the world's largest online selection of microcontroller tools". See their AVR-MT-128 board.

Motor related

Robots!

  • Chris Hillman's animatronics links a ton of links on everything related to animatronics
  • Microsoft Robotics Studio a Windows-based software tool to create robotics applications and simulations
  • NASA robotic vehicles group the folks who work on rovers and other neat extraterrestrial vehicles
  • NATCAR a contest sponsored by National Semiconductor to build an autonomous race car
  • ROBO Games billed as the world's largest robot competition
  • Robot Information super resource for everything on robots!
  • Robotics Into The 21st Century Links to what is coming in robotics
  • Robot History Timeline A concise history of robots from used-robots.com
  • Seattle Robotics Society an excellent resource for those interested in learning about and building robots
  • US First Competition a national engineering contest which immerses high school students in the exciting world of engineering. Teaming up with engineers from businesses and universities, students get a hands-on, inside look at the engineering profession. Lots of local high schools participate, so check this out and consider getting involved!

Software resources

  • C programming course Univ. of Strathclyde's course on C programming
  • C++ Online (CSC 114) Introduction to programming and problem solving using C++
  • GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) Compilers for a host of languages and target systems
  • Dev-C++ Full-featured Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Win32. It uses GCC, Mingw or Cygwin as compiler and libraries set.
  • Developing Embedded Software in C Using ICC11/ICC12/Hiware Nice overview of programming microcontrollers in C
  • GCC the GNU C, C++ Compiler Collection (for the 68HC11 and HC12) The GNU Compiler Collection integrates several compilers for many architectures. The C and C++ compilers have been ported for 68HC11 and 68HC12 micro-controllers
  • Interactive C for the Handy Board Manual the official IC manual; also gives a good brief review of some C basics
  • Numerical Recipes In C online version of the classic text for all the numerical mathematical algorithms you will ever need
  • PIC C Lite compiler Freeware version of the industrial-strength PICC ANSI C compiler. Supports the 16F877, 16F877A, 12F675, 12F629, 16F627, 16C84, 16F84 and 16F84A devices
  • Pacific Ca freeware C compiler for MS-DOS
  • Programming template a template for developing C programs
  • Standard C referencea comprehensive reference for Standard C
  • Turbo C 2.01a freeware C compiler for MS-DOS from Borland
  • WinAVRa suite of executable, open source software development tools for the Atmel AVR series of RISC microprocessors hosted on the Windows platform. Includes the GNU GCC compiler for C and C++.

Things Mechatronic

  • Hacked Gadgets lots of cool stuff "hacked" from all sorts of mechatronic devices. See also their links to other sites.
  • Instructables.com the world's biggest "do-it-yourself" (DIY) and how-to site