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> Currently a software engineer & studying mechanical engineering part time with a goal of going into robotics eventually

Well it sounds like you’re a bit beyond being a just hobbyist if you’re pursuing formal education. Sorry if this is just me being ignorant , but does your masters programs have any career resources you could look into?

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Yeah they do, however I was more interested in tinkering on projects on the weekends much like how I learnt to code. So many things seem to be simulation related with Gazebo or whatever, I’d be keen to build stuff but following a guide to help cover the EE parts.

For my part time bachelor's in electronics we made an autonomous drone that could fly a preplanned pattern and recognize people through machine learning. Software: Ardupilot and ROS. Hardware:home made 3d printed drone,PX4, Nvidia Jetson, some Intel camera). Very fun and absolutely something you could tinker with as an hobbyist (it was basically a thesis on a hobbyist project).

We first tried with a raspberry pi based autopilot, it crashed and we rebuilt it again and again until we realized the GPS was broken.

Example code from the project for inspiration: https://github.com/bachelor-2020

Thank you!

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