Robot Academy – Open online robotics education resource
It seems to me that robotics is getting more important as more companies are trying to use it (Tesla's smart factory, Amazon's robots in warehouses, space X, driveless cars, drones, etc)
Traditionally, programming has been something that one can self-study and work on personal project to build something meaningful.But programming with robotics seems to make it hard for individuals to use for personal projects because expensive hardware creates barrier for beginners to enter.Of course, one can use 3D simulator as a mean to build a personal project but I heard that what you create in 3D simulator often doesn't work in practice.Then, my question is that what would be the best way to enter field of Robotics and prepare for future where robotics programming becomes very important for someone with only programming background? For example, should I buy industrial robot arms and build personal project of automating simple tasks with computer vision, machine control, and machine learning?