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2. A roboticist is a "deconstructionist"
As a robot builder, you'll find yourself obsessively looking at the natural and built worlds and going: "Ah-ha! So that's how it's done." Nothing will be safe as you take apart toys and machines that don't work anymore (and some that still do), and find yourself playing with your food in a manner unsettling to others ("Cool, there's the ligament attachments!"). But, for the love of all that's civilized, leave the family pets alone!
self-proclaimed "high-tech nomad" Steven Roberts is often quoted as saying, "Art without engineering is dreaming. Engineering without art is calculating."
10. A roboticist knows that you need to build early and build often.
Modern robot building technologies such as Lego Mindstorms, VEX, iRobot's iCreate, open source microcontrollers, prototyping boards, and other similar innovations (not to mention computer designing, simulation, and programming software) allow robot builders a tremendous amount of freedom to experiment and build on demand. Think of pre-PC writing technology (pens and paper, typewriters) versus a word processor (complete with spell- and grammar-checking, a built-in dictionary, Thesaurus, and so forth) and that gives you some idea of today's robot tools versus those of a decade ago, even five years ago. Now you can have an idea for a new drive or sensor system, whatever, and have it built and tested within a few hours. If it doesn't work, you can quickly disassemble and assemble something else. From this rapid prototyping can come truly innovative robot designs.
11. A roboticist should know when to come back later (A.K.A. "The Kenny Rogers Rule")
When you're building anything, especially something as complicated as a robot, the build can sometimes get ugly. If you try to force your way through, you can often dig yourself into an even deeper hole. So here's what you do: "Put the soldering iron down. Step away from the steaming robot entrails!" You'll be amazed at what an hour away, vegging in front of the TV, rolling around on the floor with the cat, or sleeping on your problem will do. It almost never fails. Here's a corollary: The extent to which you don't want to drop what you're doing and take a break ("I know I can fix this, damn it!"), is inversely proportional to the extent to which you need to take a break. Why is it the Kenny Rogers Rule? Cause as Kenny wisely tells us: "you got to know when to hold, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away..."
Source: Gareth Branwyn, Absolute Beginner's Guide to Building Robots (Que, 2004), http://www.streettech.com/robotbook/