Do you guys think I should go for a Lego Mindstorms set as a way to start getting into robotics?

I know of a lot of people that recommend going through arduino and buying a bunch of shit and throwing it together etc. But the thing that makes me interested in Mindstorms is how everything seems to be in one place. A smart brick programmable through multiple different programming languages(for example Python, java, C) a good kit that can be really modular and built into different components, all sorts of sensors.

I just think its a good option, but if someone were to recommend a particular book or resource for Arduino or some other stuff I would definitely consider it.

So, what do you lads think?

get both? an Arduino starter kit doesn't cost much. you could even combine an Arduino and lego.

and if you like node js you could use JavaScript with a Raspberry Pi.
http://johnny-five.io/
Johnny-Five: The JavaScript Robotics & IoT Platform

@heyheni that is cool I did not know you could combine them both. But as far as starting with the Mindstorms set, would you say it is a good starting point?

@AleCx04 no sorry

@heyheni no need to be sorry my dude. Any particular reasons for it not being a good starting point in your experience? I would like to get as much insight into it as I can :D

Mindstorms is great for kids - I think I had one of the very first versions of it back in the day. But it's really a bit limiting for adults, unless you're going to start doing some serious hacking around with it under the covers.

@AlmondSauce I thought so as well. I have a friend who studied robotics and is currently a professor in Mexico. He utilizes mindstorms to teach certain concepts to his students using ev3dev, which he installs on the bricks in order to have more low level access to the programming functionality of the brick. About one of the only differences that I see from this and the more traditional approach to robotics study with more "do it yourself" platforms is the part when you don't need to do a lot of things yourself(cutting and putting wires and transistors etc) but I don't know much about the topic in itself at the moment to properly gauge what would be better over the other. Mind you, this is more for educational purposes for myself rather than expecting to burst into the industry with some ideas.

Friend who's a grad robotics student says go for it. Arduino etc. might bog you down with electronics/mech/assembly etc. which really aren't what robotics is about (she uses simulators for most of her work to avoid all those issues, also because actual robots are expensive as fuck).

You might outgrow it soon but if you do reach that stage you'll know you're serious about it anyway and then you could invest in something better.

I would just buy the Legos anyway. Those things are cool.

My friend teaches mindstorms for kids so i got the chance to try out a huge set and it was really fucking boring. You can build interesting stuff but you are really likited to making toys instead of anything that is actually useful.

@yellow-dog funny enough I was reading an article about some kid building a braille printer with mindstorms. Someone else made a loom machine out of it that can actually wave clothes etc etc. Does seem to me that the ability to build useful things from it comes from one's own ingenuity more than anything else.

@AleCx04 yeah well if you have seven trillion dollars to buy additional lego parts for the mindstorms kits

@Angry I will eventually place the order. I was sold on the idea and I like fancy toys :P but wanted to see if there was anything inside of this community that could point towards external resources. Ideally I want to try it out as first steps. I am already juggling with a lot of things and don't really want to jump head first into actual robotics with Arduino or that stuff without having any prior knowledge that I might obtain from the toy version of robotics.

And yes man Legos are cooooool :P

@yellow-dog I have much gold :D

@AleCx04 you can also consider buying some kits like that

https://amazon.com/Clementoni-RoboM...

and then replacing some parts with Arduino and rotors so you gain more knowledge