Hi,
Have a look at http://inmoov.fr/ . This is an open source 3D printed life size robot projet that is quite famous. You’ll find everything to make your own robot and control it.
Have great fun !!!
Eclipse for C++ by itself won’t do for programming a robot.
You’ll need to install this plugin for it, and maybe install the nececary compilers for AVR. I recommend doing it on a linux system if possible, but you should be able to set things up on windows too.
Actually, for Windows there is a nice IDE from Atmel that you should be able to use, Atmel Studio, which probably is even better suited!
You’ll also need the hardware.
If you have a normal Arduino then you are ready to go! The eclipse plugin has a preset for the Arduino to program it, and it won’t override the bootloader so you’ll be safe to play around! I am not sure about Atmel Studio, but I am confident that the community has a solution ^^
For programming microcontrollers in C or C++, a lot of things behave the same way. If’s, whiles, for loops and everything.
There is, however, one main difference in how you communicate to the outside world: With so-called registers.
Registers are fixed-position memory slots that do something very specific. For example, the “PORTA” register controls the input or output mode of certain pins.
I’d recommend googling around and reading up a bit on what they do, but they are very simple to understand.
Oh, and I’d also recommend a good understanding of the binary operators ^(xor), &(and), |(or), ~(not) and <<(left-shift), they can get handy.
If you want to get some sourcecode examples, feel free to delve into mine, though I would rather recommend searching up some tutorials. (My code really needs documentation X3)
For extra information:
The chip you are using with the Arduino is an ATMega328-P, an 8-Bit AVR processor, running at 16Mhz
The compiler used for it is AVR-Gcc
Just some extra bits if you want to search up something ^^
Hi It seems a bit odd to me that everyone talks about arduino and no one talks about Parallax.
The Parallax people do a good job at promoting robotics and anything microcontroller related.
I’m not in any way associated with Parallax but I’ve been using their microcontrollers for several years now.
Check out their forum using this link http://forums.parallax.com/
If any Parallax forum guys are listening to this 3D printing Talk forum, Please say something.
Robotics is a fun and educational endevour.
Have fun.
If you want a 3D Printed Robot, I highly recommend the EEZYbotARM:
It’s based on the very popular MeArm and aimed for the first timer, so you can use the plentiful sources for it to build your own robotic arm 
I recommend buying legitimate servo motors from a hobbystore and not eBay, because there’s a lot of fake motors that could be too underpowered.
And go for the metallic ones such as a real MG90s because plastic ones like SG90 can break inside.
Regards,
Dennis
It all depends on what kind of robot you want to do. A car? A humanoid? A drone?
How do you want to control it?
What features do you want to have?
If you are new, I advise that you start with the Arduino, it’s easy to program, their community is very helpful, and you learn a lot along the way.
If you want a robot that can do more complicated things, like object detection/vision processing, or machine learning, you need more than a microcontroller. If so, I advise you get a Raspberry Pi. The Pi costs around $35, and the Pi zero costs $5(If you can find one in stock, that is). Raspberry Pi’s are very capable devices. Another alternative is the Beagleboard.
Building a robot is actually very easy and fun. I think that everyone should try doing it. Good luck with your project!
You don’t have to go through PCB production either, you can use a breadboard. Easy to use.