New Book - Winning Design!

A good friend of mine, James Trobaugh, from the Atlanta area just had his first book published... an NXT book! It's called "Winning Design! LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Design Patterns for Fun and Competition." I've completed reading the book and I'd like to share my review (also posted on Amazon.com) of the book below...

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I've participated in many FLL tournaments as a technical judge, and I've seen many good robot designs hampered by a lack of understanding of some basic design principles. I've now completed reading the book and I'm quite impressed with the author's decision to break the book into four sections, each focusing on a particular skill (or skills) and providing plenty of real world examples of HOW and WHY things are done... or should be done.

The book is HEAVY on figures... and that's a good thing. Many of the concepts that the author writes about simply cannot be understood well without some hands-on explanations. That's why teams will be pleased to see diagrams and examples using real NXT parts to explain concepts such as turning, squaring up along a wall, and line following. And he didn't leave out some great discussion on attachments - one of the most important concepts for teams who wish to successfully accomplish multiple game table elements.

Finally, the author provides some tips and suggestions for managing your programs as well as presenting them (and the robot) to the technical judging team. And you'll also find complete building instructions for the DemoBot... a real robot that the author uses to demonstrate techniques throughout the book... build it and THEN read the book!

All in all, I'm very pleased with the book - I think new/rookie FLL teams will receive the most benefit from the book, but experienced teams are sure to find some stuff in here that will improve their scores and successes.

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James put a LOT of time and effort into this book... and it shows. Much of the material in this book comes directly from his experiences with FLL over the years, including his many roles in the FLL competition every year. Congrats, James!

MINDSTORMS Retires!

2023 is the 25th Anniversary of the MINDSTORMS brand. For 25 years, MINDSTORMS has educated and inspired a generation of robot builders, both children and adults. Unfortunately, the LEGO Group decided to end the line on December 2022. Many ROBOTMAK3RS have been passionately involved with the development of MINDSTORMS through the MUP and MCP programs. Even with the newest Robot Inventor line, several ROBOTMAK3RS were invited to submit additional bonus models that were included in the official app. Regardless of the retirement of a major LEGO robotics product line, ROBOTMAK3RS continue to MAKE-SHARE-INSPIRE using all LEGO robotics platforms available to us. Here is the official statement from LEGO. Since its launch in September 1998, LEGO MINDSTORMS has been one of the core ‘Build & Code’ experiences in the company’s portfolio, carrying with it significant brand equity and becoming a stand-out experience for the early days of consumer robotics and leading to current Build & Code

Celebrating MINDSTORMS with a Remix Part 1

In honor of the 25th Anniversary of MINDSTORMS, we asked ROBOTMAK3RS to combine a LEGO set of their choice with a MINDSTORMS set. Here is what these five ROBOTMAK3RS came up with. MINDSTORMS Chess Assistant by Arvind Seshan Overview: When you are new to chess, it can be a challenge to remember which pieces go where. Now, you can use machine learning and LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor to build a tool to help you learn where all the chess pieces go on the chess board. Sets used: LEGO® Iconic Chess Set (40174) and MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor (51515) Review: I really like how the chess set base can store all the pieces underneath and that the board neatly splits in half for handy storage. The chess pieces themselves are very sturdy and well built. My only criticism is the building of the box itself. It was quite difficult to see what pieces to use and since the entire box is made mostly of thin plates, it took a lot of time and patience. I would have liked the storage area to be sliding dra

Machine Learning Meets MINDSTORMS

Machine Learning Extension LEGO MINDSTORMS announced today a brand new feature that is sure to excite all users. Machine Learning Extension is coming to the software in August 2022. This will allow users to implement new applications that were not possible before. Machine Learning has become exceedingly popular in recent years with applications in all sorts of industries from robotics to financial services to climate change. Now, even the youngest of robot enthusiasts and programmers have access to the world of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. Comparing two classes Machine Learning on MINDSTORMS will work with both images and audio. For instance, you could train your model to recognize smiles and frowns on your face and have the emotion displayed on your hub. You could train your model to recognize when a red ball is present or not or identify a particular LEGO element. You can control your robot with audio commands that use your own voice. It is exciting to see what new p

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