I did something similar recently… the string was —-this—- long, how long is yours ?
The beginning is requirements, specifications, parts wishlist, budget… then you decide whether to go ahead or not.
Buy the minimum hardware pieces you decided upon earlier…
Then work on individual control/software components with non-blocking code.
Review.
You’re not making a robot yet.
Get all the basic functionality working… motor control, sensing, user interface…
Review.
Buy the remaining hardware components, including the things you forgot about.
Then start bolting things together.
Then, and only then are you building a robot, and can start tying the code pieces together with the hardware you specified at the beginning.
Enjoy, now you’ve reached the testing phase.
You can repeat the last few lines as you debug and fine-tune the code you used to get started.
Review.
Often it takes three or more full rewrites to get it ‘just right’.
Congratulations, it works.
Review.
Now you can start planning v2.0
- and you’ll learn a lot on the way through!
And remember to document everything at every step along the way, or you’re having fun now, but wasting your time in 6-9 months from now when you want to modify or repair something.