Shih-Chung (Jessy) Kang is an associate professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at National Taiwan University (NTU). Dr. Kang began using MSRDS on a research project in 2006 before its official launch by Microsoft and now often teaches about robotics using it. He earned his Ph.D. from Stanford University. Wei-Tze (Aries) Chang is a postdoctoral researcher at NTU. Dr. Chang is also an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at Tamkang University. He earned his Ph.D. from NTU. Kai-Yuan Gu is a digital design engineer for the Mighty Power Solutions Corp., where he designs automated products for energy-saving devices and lighting. He earned a master's degree from NTU. Hung-Lin Chi is a doctoral student in the Department of Civil Engineering at NTU. He is currently researching the integration of robot-sensing techniques into remote-controlled systems for cranes.
Readers will appreciate the authors’ step-by-step approach to programming and constructing a basic robot that can interact with the world. This combination of a top-down approach and a step-by-step guide instructs the reader to take a holistic, system-based perspective rather than a traditional functional-component-based one when exploring the construction of an autonomous robot. —Eric W. Yocam, Computing Reviews, March 2012