Programming to learn kinematics

[Avatrin]

Hi

I am learning kinematics. Topics include inertia tensors, cosine matrices, quaternions, Euler angles etc... To learn these topics well, I want to try working on something a bit more difficult than just the underlying math. That will probably keep me more motivated.

So, I am looking for resources that can teach me how to animate robot arms and other rigid bodies to play around with the concepts I need to learn. I don't have access to Matlab. So, I want to use Python and/or Javascript since I am already quite familiar with these languages and have used them in other contexts. Are there any websites or books you guys can recommend?

 

[jrmichler]

I don't have access to Matlab.

But you do have access to Octave, a free Matlab clone. The help files are not as good as the Matlab help files, while everything else seems similar. Although, I was not able to get Octave to read a time/date stamp from a text file that I think Matlab would have been able to read.