Robotics sites
For sites referring to the Lego EV3 robot, follow THIS LINK.
I've been looking hard for online shops with a wide range of relevant robotics and electronics equipment with convenient delivery to Belgium/France/UK. Here are the key addresses, according to me, in order of strength of recommendation (most strongly recommended first). The US sites which do not give prices in Euros or Pounds are included since they are good reference sites, often the manufactures of accessories sold in Europe, and some have good tutorials:
adafruit.com is a great US-based site but there is an option at the bottom of the page to display the price in Euros and they deliver worldwide. But if you are outside the US you are better off ordering from one of their foreign distributors such as those in the UK and France. Adafruit has many good tutorials on the Raspberry Pi, general robotics topics etc and they make many original products.
Robohub.org is a non-profit online communication platform that brings together experts in robotics research, start-ups, business, and education from across the globe. The mission at Robohub is to connect the robotics community to the rest of the world.
SimpleBotics is an online blog that covers the evolving world of robotics. Every week, it updates you on the latest in consumer robotics, drones, robot projects, and other advancements in robotics.
dawnrobotics.co.uk has a good Raspberry Pi based robot base with camera
dexterindustries.com in Virginia developed the BrickPi that allows the Raspberry Pi to connect with Lego NXT and EV3 motors and sensors. They also developed the GoPiGo which is the Raspberry Pi based robot rover that I chose to buy for my first experiments with Pi robotics.
www.generationrobots.com is based in France. Product prices are available in dollars, pounds and euros.
pimoroni.com is UK-based
hobbytronics.co.uk has a robotics section
hobbyking.com claims to be 'the ultimate hobby experience'. Pricing options include dollars, GBP and EUR and they have a ware house in the UK.
myrobots.com allows your internet-connected robot and smart devices to share information by connecting them to the robotic cloud. Compatible with Arduino.
arduino.cc has a store at http://store.arduino.cc/eu/index.php
parallax.com are the makers of the BOE-Bot which I strongly recommend to anyone who wants to learn about both digital electronics and simple robotics (for more advanced robotics programming, focus instead on the Lego EV3 robot or a robot that can be programmed using the Python programming language).
The Parallax site includes a subsite learning.parallax.com with a great 50 hour sequence of lessons based on the Arduino version of the BOE Bot. Go to parallax.com/Default.aspx?tabid=492 for a list of European distributors of Parallax equipment. The list includes www.antratek.com based in Belgium and the Netherlands.
active-robots.com based in UK was one of only two online sources I could find for the Parallax Ping))) bracket in Europe. However, the search engine on this site is poor and lists many unwanted results.
CS2N, or Computer Science Student Network, is a site for Computer Science activities, Computer Science competitions, and courses. CS2N provides step-by-step lessons to make programming easy.
ebay.com / ebay.fr / ebay.co.uk has a huge selection of affordable robot parts, many coming from China, meaning slow delivery and possible extra charges?
amazon.co.uk have quite a pretty good selection of robotics and electronics but they are not robotics specialists by any means so their offers are not presented as neatly as elsewhere.
Robomatter.com are a US-based site which sells the educational materials developed by Carnegie Mellon Robotics Academy. If you want to buy such materials you will need a friend in the US because they will not deliver to Europe.
robotshop.com/eu was one of only two online sources I could find for the Parallax Ping))) bracket in Europe. This site is available in French as well as English. Distributor for Sparkfun products.
alpha-crucis.com/en/ is a France/Switzerland based company. Prices can be displayed in Euros
sainsmart.com has a branch in China and seems to specialise in importing from there.
dfrobot.com is based in China but has a good English language site with prices in Euros, delivery to Europe and lots of unique products.
tinyosshop.com is based in China and may be cheaper than other sites.
pololu.com based in Las Vegas, worldwide shipping
bizoner.com is a US company which seems to offer some more sophisticated and expensive Arduino based robots that are not available elsewhere. They deliver to Europe.
robotsimple.com is another US store
robotoid.com includes the first 4 of 7 lessons on how to build the Ardbot, an Arduino based robot that is no doubt cheaper than the BOE bot. However, getting the final 3 lessons may require signing up to Servo magazine and getting parts for the Ardbot would require ordering from the US which is best avoided since there could be problems with customs etc.
Another cheap Arduino-based robot was proposed in the February 2012 edition of Popular Mechanics magazine. It's called the 'Build Your First Robot' (BYFR). See http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/engineering/robots/build-your-first-robot-2 and http://robotoid.com/byfr/ . It actually looks like a very interesting project, but I still recommend the BOE bot because it is so straightforward to buy the kit in Europe.
Robot magazine has an online version called Botmag which has lots of interesting articles and an education section. Botmag links to the Robotshop which also has an education section.
Many circuit boards are available that can be plugged into the Arduino - these boards are called 'shields'. Check this link for more ideas:
hacknmod.com/hack/top-40-arduino-projects-of-the-web/
Sites in French:
RobotBuzz has the latest robot news.
Gotronic is an online robotics shop (only in French). Distributor for Sparkfun products.
Semageek, c'est le web magazine des technologies high tech. Notre équipe parcours un ensemble de source d’information internationale afin de faire ressortir un vision très ciblée de l’actualité numérique. Semageek, c’est avant tout le web magazine dédié à la haute technologie, mais avec un point de vue et une expertise électronique approfondie.
Pobot is a robotics club in my area in the south of France. I joined this club in March 2015 and I meet people there who give helpful advice regarding my project of building a rather large Raspberry Pi and Python-driven rover-style robot with robotic arm and camera.