[textminer]

Pragmatic question: I'm a mathematician by training, and currently a machine learning engineer at a large Silicon Valley company. How does one in their late twenties jump into really working robotics? Machine learning was something I could watch lectures on, read papers about, work the math out on paper, then spend years in Python/C++ getting a feel for across various problem domains. Physical robots don't seem as accessible.

[thearn4]

It sounds like we have the same background - I'd recommend getting into microcontroller programming with a platform like Arduino, and maybe look into some computer vision libraries (OpenCV is great).

[nl]

Computer Vision is a good gateway.

Also, play with Arduino some.

[Qworg]

Sensors. All robots need sensors and your math background will serve you well.