BOOK: "The Mayan Adventure" chapter excerpts

UPDATE: Not long after I posted this, I received an email telling me that MAKE magazine has posted a little blurb about my book - but the best part is that they've included a PDF download that includes ALL of chapter 1 and chapter 2, not just an excerpt. Read it here.

I've received requests for chapter excerpts for my book "LEGO Mindstorms NXT: The Mayan Adventure" and I'm happy to comply.

Below are links to numerous items, including the Design Journal Page that is used in the theory chapters (chapters 2, 6, 10, 14, and 18) to help develop the 5 robots included with the book (and useful for helping design your own robots).

The Design Journal Page is all yours - make as many copies as you like. The PDF file contains 6 blanks for you to print out and I hope you find it useful. If you're not sure how the Design Journal Page works, be sure to check out the Chapter 2 excerpt below - each section of the Design Journal page is covered in detail in those theory chapters (mentioned above) and by the time the reader has completed all 5 robots, the Design Journal Page will be very familiar territory.

Click here to download Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 - The fictional storyline starts (Ch1) and Theory Chapter with Design Journal Page (2)

Click here to download an excerpt of Chapter 3 - Building Instructions for a robot

Click here to download an excerpt of Chapter 4 - Programming Instructions for a robot

Click here to download the Design Journal Page

Click here for bundled excerpts of Chapters 2, 3, and 4
and finally click here to download the Table of Contents

Celebrating 25 Years of MINDSTORMS

In celebration of the 25th Anniversary of MINDSTORMS, we take a trip through history. Please also visit ROBOTMAK3RS Community every week as we highlight different projects all through 2023 in celebration of the anniversary. Some of the early history is based on the content shared by Coder Shah in our MINDSTORMS EV3 Community Group . Some of the text and links may have been edited from his original posts for consistency and clarity. 1984 - Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen watched a TV program called "Talking Turtle," where MIT professor Seymour Papert demonstrated how children could control robot "turtles" using LOGO, a programming language he developed. 1988 - The collaboration between MIT and LEGO resulted in LEGO TC Logo in 1988, which allowed students to control LEGO models using computer commands. The video shows Papert demonstrating TC Logo. 1990 - LEGO TC Logo was hampered since the robots you built had to be tethered to a personal computer. LEGO and MIT...

ROBOTMAK3RS Review: LEGO River Steamboat

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Ghostbusters R.T.V Remix

Nino Guba is from Torrance, California, USA. He played with LEGO as a kid, but growing up in the Philippines, it wasn’t something he had easy access to. He only got reintroduced to LEGO when he moved to the US and had kids of his own. When his sons were younger, they received LEGO sets as gifts, but as they grew older, the sets got put into storage as their interest faded. Fast forward a few years, he started coming up with his own product ideas and thought about how he could quickly prototype them. That’s when he discovered LEGO MINDSTORMS—and was hooked! He raided his kids’ old collection, got everything organized, and now he's designing and building his own creations, blending his coding skills with LEGO robotics to bring ideas to life. Tell us about your Ghostbusters Remote Trap Vehicle (R.T.V) project. This project is a LEGO Technic adaptation of the Ghostbusters R.T.V.—a ghost trap converted into a remote-controlled vehicle. Its companion build is a prop replica of the Futaba...

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