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 MINDSTORMS with a Remix - Part 3

The ROBOTMAK3RS continued their celebration of the 25th Anniversary of MINDSTORMS through these Fall and Winter remix projects. Each ROBOTMAK3R was tasked with selecting one LEGO set of their choice and combining it with a MINDSTORMS set. Below are the five amazing models they came up with. Braill3 by Jerry Nicholls Braill3 is an EV3-based LEGO Braille bricks reader. This robot uses its fingertip, made from three touch switches, to read messages written using the LEGO Braille bricks and will speak out what it detected. If it sees a simple maths problem it will attempt to solve it and give the answer as well. To learn more about the process of creating this machine, read Jerry's blog . Braill3 can be viewed here . Set Review: The Braille Bricks set is well thought out. The ratios of the letters is suitable for general use and the addition of some punctuation and arithmetic operators is excellent. There is a card showing what bricks there are and their quantities, but no form of sort...

Celebrating MINDSTORMS with a Remix - Part 2

The ROBOTMAK3RS continued their celebration of the 25th Anniversary of MINDSTORMS through these summer and fall remix projects. Each ROBOTMAK3R was tasked with selecting one LEGO set of their choice and combining it with a MINDSTORMS set. Below are the five amazing models they came up with. Remote controlled material handle r by Jozua van Ravenhorst (aka Mr Jo) This remix combines the LEGO Technic Material Handler (42144) with MINDSTORMS EV3 (31313) It uses the power of pneumatic cylinders to move objects around. By using a bluetooth remote control, very precise movements can be made with this model. Touch sensors in the base chassis prevent the turret twisting the cables that go through the turntable to much. The program has several protections to prevent over pressurizing the system for each of the 3 individual pumps and valves that control the 2 booms and claws. The real version of this machine is mostly used in waste material sites to bring the material to machines that sort and...

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...

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