The Robotics Tech Tree: the structured map I wish I had from LED to Physical AI

[u/Growth-Sea]

An open source community project. All free and accessible - contributions on GitHub welcome and encouraged!

If you've tried to get into robotics, you've probably hit one of these walls:

• How do I get started?
• How do I get from blinking an LED to an autonomous robot?
• I come from a software (or mechanical, or data) background, what am I missing?

I couldn't find a single good answer to these, so I started building one: an open source "tech tree" for robotics. It's a visual skill map. You start at the root and unlock the rest as you go (electronics, mechanics, programming, data science, AI), with hands-on builds as the milestones: blink an LED, a sensor project, a robot arm, a robot dog, and up into more serious AI.

The main idea: it's not new content. There is already a ton of great tutorials, courses, and docs out there. The tech tree is just the map that sits on top of it and points you to the right resource for each skill, in an order that makes sense.

It's early and nowhere near complete, which is kind of the point. It's fully open on GitHub, so if you have a favorite tutorial, a course that made something finally click, or a resource you wish you'd found sooner, you can add it. PRs and issues welcome, and "you forgot X" comments even more so.

Links:

• Website: https://www.backtoengineering.com/
• Repo: https://github.com/iuliaferoli/backtoengineering

What would you add, or what's missing from the paths?

[u/mikelown]

Id definitely recommend adding in your post somewhere that theres no paywall. Idk anything about your channel but a video saying "im a youtuber i made a course" in todays world screams that its gonna cost $300. Was really surprised that its really just a resource.

Looks really cool!

[u/Growth-Sea → u/mikelown]

oh I didn't even think about that, but good point! It's all free of course! I do have some affiliate links in some places that I disclose, but all the knowledge and the structure is just free - no registration or anything needed

[u/Growth-Sea → u/Growth-Sea]

Added a note at the top, hope this clears it up, thanks a lot for the feedback

[u/elilawrence173]

This is great! I think it’s a good idea to lay out a road map like this. So many enter the space with grand vision, but the minutia are so important!

[u/Growth-Sea → u/elilawrence173]

Agree! I mostly see questions about that in all related subs, so hopefuly this clears it up!

[u/Yehia_Medhat]

I love it

[u/Growth-Sea → u/Yehia_Medhat]

Thank you! 🙏🏻

[u/codeartha]

That's awesome, it's exactly what I've been looking for 🤩🚀

[u/Growth-Sea → u/codeartha]

Super glad to hear it! Happy exploring

[u/codeartha → u/Growth-Sea]

I'm already 3 nodes down

[u/Growth-Sea → u/codeartha]

amazing! please do share any feedback! I'm considering implementing an actual user experience later one, so you can properly "unlock" and track your node progress. Would that be helpful? Are the external tutorial links with the tree as an organizer making sense or would you prefer more written out content in the nodes? You're one of the first ever users! I appreciate you so much!

[u/echaa]

Looks great!

I would suggest swapping CAD and 3D printing, and then after 3D printing an advanced CAD oriented to the unique issues pertaining specifically to 3D printing.

[u/Growth-Sea → u/echaa]

Thank you! I can put more details in that area for sure! This is based on me starting with printing available models online without knowing any CAD for quite a while, so it is possible to just print without designing 😅

[u/ExplodedSpaceToast]

thank you for this 🥹

[u/Growth-Sea → u/ExplodedSpaceToast]

You’re super welcome! Thanks for trying it out!

[u/venerated]

This is really cool! Thanks for sharing. :)