I don’t know that I agree, even at the simple project level. If the problem you’re trying to solve has been solved exactly before and you can find a good reference to copy then you might be ok (for example the inverted pendulum problem). But in my experience you end up solving a related problem instead and that’ll often require re-deriving the equations of motion with whatever quirk is required.

The other part that’ll catch you pretty hard if you don’t have strong trig and linear algebra going for you is that debugging is going to be really hard. I admittedly have been deep in positioning-and-attitude control for 5 years now, but the ability to look at a transformation matrix or quaternion and mentally grok exactly what it means odd going to be incredibly useful when you’re trying to figure out why your system isn’t doing what you think it should be.

Indeed. But I think I would like to be oriented better, and not feel completely outside it.

My calculus is strongest; I can deal with that basically. My geometry is so poor that I am surprised I passed my maths A level.

These books excite me because they give back that, er, constructivist thing that has always appealed to me -- Piaget, Papert, Minsky.

I enjoyed your article, thank you for writing it.

It’s just used to gatekeep still. It justifies why they should hire the new grad masters student with a similar background over someone who has actually written the code before.

I guess this may be true. But my lack of knowledge of these things is on a different plane to the "knows well-enough" vs "expert in" distinction that might be useful for gatekeeping.

My grasp of trig has relapsed to 13-year-old level. It's an embarrassment!