New Book Review - NXT "Black Book"

I received my copy of the "NXT Black Book" today from yesasia.com. The book is written by Oba Shinichiro and is slightly larger then the "NXT Orange Book" written by Yoshihito Isogawa. [NOTE: for a review of the "NXT Orange Book", click here.]

The Black Book (BB) is 164 pages and is a mixture of full-color pages and black&white pages. While the Orange Book focuses mainly on Technic building and offers a lot of example robots and devices to create, the BB seems to focus mainly on the NXT-G software. While there are a few robot examples scattered around, the actual samples of robots and devices doesn't start until page 137.

The samples consist of full-color pages and there are a total of only 4 sample robots. Of those 4 samples, though, 1 is the Tribot we're all familiar with but the author has created a variation of the Touch sensor apparatus and provides building instructions (BIs). Also provided for the Tribot is an apparatus that appears to be pulled by the Tribot and has some spinning pieces that move as the wheels turn. Another robot is shown that consists of a mixture of NXT and RCX parts and seems to use the Ultrasonic sensor and Light sensor but also has an interesting "chain driven" mechanism for the wheels that I've not seen on an NXT bot yet. The final robot is a true Walker. I'm building it now (and will post pictures when done) based on the limited pictures, but the author has done a good job of providing enough photos to be able to put it together.

One big drawback (for me, at least) is the entire book is in Japanese (as is the OB). So I am unable to tell if the programming instructions for these bots is provided somewhere in the earlier part of the book. It doesn't appear so, but I could be wrong.

As I said, the book appears to be more for someone learning the NXT-G programming environment. This is based on the screenshots and drawings scattered around.

All in all, I'm sure the book will be useful for Japanese users who are wanting to learn NXT-G, but the book is probably not going to be of much use to those who don't read Japanese. I can't really give an honest review of a book that I can't read... all I can really say is that the Walker looks awesome and, if it's really functional, will be fun to play around with...

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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