Get the practical reference to programming robotic applications by using the Microsoft Robotics Studio. Ideal for programmers familiar with Windows® based development using Microsoft Visual Studio® and the Microsoft .NET Framework, this guide expertly illustrates how to use the Robotics Studio. You ll discover how to use the services provided in the Robotics Studio to handle navigation and remote control, speech, video, and intelligent behavior in a robotic device. It includes coverage of the included Visual Programming Language, plus code examples in Microsoft Visual C#®.
Key Book Benefits:

Delivers practical guidance about how services relate to programming robots

Provides references to simulations, navigation and remote control, speech and video, and much more

Features sample code in Visual Programming Language and Visual C#

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 5 Ratings

Glad to finally have a book for MSRS - 2008-04-06
Reviewer Rating:
This book is a good start but I can't wait for the next edition (if there is one). The author attempted too much coverage for the limited number of pages (a little over 200). I have completed all of the Microsoft Tutorials for MSRS and this book is a refreshing change. The author begins with coverage of SERVICES and does not include any illustrations. Microsoft Tutorials and Powerpoint presentations have several great illustrations on SERVICES. Also, the coverage of SERVICES is completed in an orderly manner but not in the same order used in the coding chapters (chapters 5 and later). There are the expected typos, as you expect in a new book. A couple can cause frustration until you figure out what happened.

I will say that MSRS books are very much needed. While MSRS is not a huge software product, it contains several new concepts for many programmers. I have a background in C, C++, C#, and VB. MSRS is best when using C#.

In summary:
1. I would have liked to have had a thicker book (like the one coming out in June from other authors.
2. The author of this book made the decision to only do superficial coverage of MSRS subjects such as Simulation and VPL which I believe will be used quite a bit in academic enviorments and more everywhere in the future. The VPL feature of C# code generation is important and deserved move attention.
3. The author's style of writing is great and very readable. I wish her well and look forward to a 2nd edition.

Good, but needs more - 2008-06-28
Reviewer Rating:
This book, much like Professional Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio (Wrox Programmer to Programmer), gives good examples, but only for what is explained. If you are interested in doing something like converting hardware robotics applications to simulations, then this is NOT the book for you. Also, to do the examples, you would require to have the robots, and each chapter makes use of a different robot.

If you are only interested in the hardware and not the simulation, then this book is excellent. However simulations (one of the KEY features in MSRS-MRDS) is sorely missed. Especially in conversion between hardware and simulation projects.

Dissapointing - 2008-06-18
Reviewer Rating:
This book is not very helpful for someone trying to learn MRDS. You would be better off sticking to the tutorials on the MS website. There is very little detail about how to actually get started writing robotics software. The best I can say about it is it references other interesting projects. I wonder if this author is actually a MRDS developer because if she was she would have gone into much more detail about the nuts and bolts of MRDS.

Dissapointed - 2008-06-05
Reviewer Rating:
I bought the book because I thought the MSRS tutorials weren't descriptive enough. I was looking for a organized and detailed guide to start using MSRS. This book turned to be useless, it's continuously referencing the tutorials and it does not provide any addiditional information. It uses profusely links to explain things... the author did not realize the the book was going to be printed on paper, so readers could not open those links and would not go to their PCs to hardcode the links in the browser...

There is lack of illustrations and diagrams.

Sometimes I thought that the writer had never used MSRS... and simply,she cut and pasted sentences from the internet to come up with a book...

Good Book - 2008-12-25
Reviewer Rating:
Someone wants to know about Robotics Studio, this is a good book to start with.