Book Review - Maximum LEGO NXT

Well, I got a copy of Brian Bagnall's "Maximum LEGO NXT: Building Robots with Java Brains" and I've finished my first review of the material. In a sentence: The material looks awesome.

21 chapters and 3 appendices (in roughly 500 pages) - Brian starts out with a nice summarized history of Mindstorms and then quickly moves into a description of LeJOS. I've got a bit of experience with Java, and I actually read Chapter 3 (Java for Primates) and was reminded quickly of some standard programming rules that I had forgotten. He also provides a good but quick summary of the Java API. (I've skipped around a bit and also read Chapters 4, 7, 12, and 20, so I think I've got a fairly good grasp on the technical writing and the quality of the robots.)

Mixed into the book are chapters that cover a broad range of topics - one chapter covers the Technic components, another a little design theory, and he's got a really nice chapter on Bluetooth.

Around chapter 8, Brian gets into the heart of some serious robot building - the robots he includes are impressive, and he provides complete CAD step-by-steps (grayscale) for all of them. What's impressive is that he also provides plenty of mathematical discussions before getting into the actual Java code. I've forgotten a lot of basic geometry and I was surprised to see quite a bit of it included at various places in the book.

My absolute favorite design in the book has to be his version of the Mars explorer, Sojourner. His recreation is fairly true to the original - you really have to see it.

A lot of people have wondered why it took so long to get the book out. Once you see the work that went into this book, I think you'll understand and cut Brian some slack - the book is very well done.

Now I'm going to try and find some time to actually go through the remaining chapters and build his robots and try out the LeJOS code. It may take some time, not just because I'm busy and always have other projects, but also because the book is just very extensive.

Good job, Brian... definitely a quality NXT book... and I'll forgive you for not including The NXT Step as a reference in one of your appendices ;)

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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