[morkalork]

Where would you recommend someone to start from a more data-sciencey background, algorithms like VSLAM look interesting to mess around with but building a whole robot just to do so seems daunting.

[exe34]

In that case it doesn't sound like you want to learn robotics - you want to learn VSLAM.

It's like saying how do I learn car manufacturing but really I just want to try to make rubber tyres.

[shitloadofbooks]

Couldn't you try implement them in a game engine?