Last night, I found that Netflix has a sampler that includes the first seven lectures of this course available for streaming – http://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/understanding-the-world-s-greatest-structures-science-and-innovation-from-antiquity-to-modernity.html
I’ve watched the first 5.5 lectures; they’re each about 30 mins. long. They do a really good job of explaining basic structural mechanics in easily digestible chunks and should be understandable to almost anyone – and especially so if you already have an understanding of free-body diagrams and algebra.
It focuses on buildings and bridges, but a lot of the concepts presented are directly applicable to robot design.
Netflix link – http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/80017154?trkid=2734329