Well, I have been playing with the www.theconstructsim.com and https://www.robotigniteacademy.com/, which are one in the same. I am a cheap person and have been doing the free introductions for all of their classes. I am certain that I will be buying a subscription to their services. I think at least a month of the classes and a few months of the simulation environment will make things come together much faster. I want to reiterate that I am not getting payed by this site, getting any discounts, or friends from school with the creators (not saying I would turn down an offer of any of these from these people).
Most of my issues with ROS have been learning: the steps of the process, the process itself, knowing about stuff that seems apparent to everyone else on the internet, and the path of ROS without a guide and with limited time. So far, the process has been like fighting to learn the ins and outs of ROS and Linux. These issues I have been having are due to being an outsider trying to break into the secret location to the mysterious holy information. The books that I have looked through helped quite a bit; I could not have got as far as I have without them--but they are not enough to get me to the next level and hit my imaginary deadline of finishing this project before I die. I need to have a well organized, knowledgeable, and intelligent teacher in an environment that will not stop working when it gets updated.
Many of the issues that I have had could have been avoided by playing with the HUSKY Robot in ROS: https://www.clearpathrobotics.com/husky-unmanned-ground-vehicle-robot/ - the robot
http://www.clearpathrobotics.com/assets/guides/ros/ -the ROS guide
This guide gives a virtual machine that has all of the versions of everything you need at the same versions that are being shown by the guide. This should eliminate many of the problems that I have had learning ROS and dealing with Linux -- all of the commands should work as shown, but it didn't
The main problem with this solution is that it was a VM. When I use it, it was not in full screen, and changing from the VM to the normal desktop to read the guide. The changing from environment to environment makes it hard to use due to the distractions and you can't copy and paste across the desktops. Most of my computers are pretty weak in the processing department, so this method was also slow. It makes it hard to keep the learning rolling with so many issues. But this does not really teach on how to build with ROS.
*Looking back on this the solution should have been to install all of the clearpathrobotics stuff on a clean Ubuntu installation. This would allow for a full screen, make it easier for going through the guide, get practice, provide more power for ROS, and just make the learning flow better. *
Books! Books have an issue with being dated like webpages. They may not work with the newest versions of ROS or the version you may have installed. They kinda miss out on the magic of getting you to play with the fun stuff and as much as I hate to admit it, the turtlebot sim may be the magic for some people. *Note* When I talk about turtlebot sim I am talking about the Legend of Turtle: Turtle's Simulation*, the little cartoony overhead sim, not the turtlebot 3-d simulation with a model of the turtlebot in an environment. The book then cover only how to build a robot or different functionalities of ROS.
My understanding of ROS changes the way that I believe that ROS should be be learned. I have earlier stated that I was sick of the way books spend so much time on the turtlebot sim stuff. I believe it is an oversimplification that does little for demonstrating the functionality and abilities of ROS. It doesn't do anything to get me excited about the software because it feels like it takes the user in a different direction and looks like an old cartridge based video game. The 3-d version on the other hand, does what the 2-d(on't)*.
The 3-d version is a real robot simulation. The books should dump the 2-d for the 3-d because this way they can show everything ROS can do in the first chapter. When they have you hooked with the real simulation, they can move onto how to make your own robot simulation, and then they don't have to go over some of the stuff that they have already have presented to you.
Now this is where I am going to talk about the website that teaches you how to do ROS. I have played with ROS Basics in 5 Days and ROS Navigation in 5 Days. The free version only lets you use the first lessons in a course and will let youplay arround for 20 minutes before you have to log back in to it. With the limited time I have opened nano on some of the files and checked them out. I have added different visualizations in RVIZ and have leaned more from the introduction than what was meant to be learned. So far I like how they start with a demonstrations of what you will be doing right off the bat. If I ever get any more money, I will pay to take these classes. When that happens, I will do a review.
1/17/18