Hey all - I recently found this interesting instructable via Reddit:
It covers a ton of interesting material regarding mechanical design and such, which may be of interest to anyone building (or thinking of building) a robot or other machinery. At the end, it mentioned a book called "FUNdaMENTALs of Design" by Alexander H. Slocum of MIT. The link given at the end was broken, but with some googling, I managed to find the book - which is a set of free PDFs:
http://pergatory.mit.edu/2.007/resources/FUNdaMENTALS.html
It also comes with a variety of Excel design spreadsheets, which are referenced in the book. Be warned, this book does not seem like it is for beginners at all, but it does seem very interesting, and it's layout format (if it were printed) is also rather unique (right-hand pages are quick-ref pictorials mostly, and left-hand pages are the in-depth details for the pictorials).
Hope someone finds it interesting like I did... 