ROS 2 on a laptop in 60 minutes from install to moving bot
A junior robotics setup should start as a boring ROS 2 system in a container, not as a heroic hardware sprint. My position: simulation-first is the fastest honest path to a working robot because it exposes topics, timing, transforms, and failures before motors can hide them behind drama.
Your first robot should be fake because fake robots fail faster
I would not begin by buying a physical robot arm, because a wrong tf2 frame, inverted motor direction, or blocking callback can turn a 5-minute software mistake into damaged hardware and an afternoon of guessing. Start with a simulated node graph…
The skinny
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