Extreme Mindstorms: an Advanced Guide to Lego Mindstorms [Paperback]

Dave Baum (Author), Michael Gasperi (Author), Ralph Hempel (Author), Luis Villa (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1893115844 | ISBN-13: 978-1893115842 | Publication Date: October 2000 | Edition: 1st

This book is designed to take the experienced user of Mindstorms to the next level. It contains information available nowhere else on such topics as sensor development, pbForth and LegOS. Numerous projects are presented with simple systematic instructions, and though the topics covered are advanced, readers should be able to assemble the projects and understand how they work without any prior knowledge of electronics.

About the authors: The authors of Extreme Mindstorms are widely regarded as some of the leading gurus for serious Mindstorm development. Dave Baum is the creator of NQC, the most powerful language available for programming Mindstorm robots. Luis Villa has maintained an extensive collection of information on legOS, and Hempel is an authority on constructing custom Mindstorms sensors. Each author has written a section of the book based on his specialty.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael Gasperi has been an expert in LEGO Mindstorms sensors since they were first introduced in 1998. His popular web site and contributing chapters to Extreme Mindstorms (Apress, 2000) have guided many people through the process of building their own extensions to the kit.

Ralph Hempel is a professional engineer who specializes in embedded systems design. Ralph holds a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo in Canada. LEGO had been a part of Ralph's life since the late 1960s, but when he bought a set for his son Owen in 1997, the flame was rekindled. Besides building original Technic and Town models with his family, Ralph enjoys snowboarding, mountain biking, and playing blues harmonica.

Luis Villa is an undergraduate at Duke University studying computer science. He rediscovered LEGO and became an expert in LEGOS while preparing to become a teacher's assistant for a Duke course that used LEGO MINDSTORMS. Luis writes and maintains the legOS HOWTO, which can be found on the Web at http://legos.sourceforge.net/HOWTO. Besides maintaining the legOS HOWTO, Luis spends his spare time studying political theory and attending lots of Blue Devil basketball games.

Dave Baum is a principal staff engineer at Motorola. With the advent of LEGO MINDSTORMS, Baum was able to combine two of his favorite pastimes: programming and building with LEGO. He then developed Not Quite C (NQC), a powerful language for programming MINDSTORMS robots that has been widely accepted by advanced users. Visit Dave's personal website at BaumFamily.org/NQC.

Product Details

• Paperback: 347 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1st edition (October 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893115844
• ISBN-13: 978-1893115842
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,427,628 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

When I was growing up in the 1960s and '70s it made sense to build things, such as a computer, from component parts. In fact, you could build all kinds of electronic products, including television sets, this way. Not only does this not make any economic sense now, it is also physically impossible to deal with the tiny electronic components. Back then, magazines such as Popular Electronics provided all kinds of projects for the electronic hobbyist to experiment with. One of the regular columns was written by Forrest Mims, and I eagerly anticipated reading his latest monthly installment. I always thought, "What a cool job this guy has; someday I'm going to do something like that."

I went to Purdue University, earned an engineering degree, and ended up doing industrial research at Rockwell Automation in Milwaukee, WI. However, a part of me still yearned for the dream job of cooking up interesting projects and telling people how to do them. Back in 1998 LEGO introduced the MINDSTORMS Robotic Invention System. I naively bought a kit for my 10 year old daughter Audrey, but quickly got swept up in the network of adult hackers trying to unlock the product's real potential. Through a simple personal web page I started publishing how the LEGO sensors worked and how to build new ones. This led to being invited to appear at MIT's MindFest and eventually to authoring and coauthoring several books on the subject.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book!, November 9, 2000

By 

Daniel Mills (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Extreme Mindstorms: an Advanced Guide to Lego Mindstorms (Paperback)

I recommend this book to anyone who wants to do some serious programming with the Lego Mindstorms kit. The four authors are experts in different areas like LegOS, NQC, pbForth, and even on making your own sensors for the robot.

The illustrations are very well done and make building the robots a simple task. The programming examples are very clear, and easy to follow, yet still fun to do. I particularly like the variety of the book. There are many projects, and they illustrate different features of the robots and the different programming envorinments. On the desktop side, it has examples on getting the system working on several platforms, like Linux, or Microsoft Windows.

This is most certainly the best advanced Lego Mindstorms book you'll find, and at a great price, too.

31 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good and not too extreme, November 28, 2000

By 

Monica Stewart - See all my reviews

This review is from: Extreme Mindstorms: an Advanced Guide to Lego Mindstorms (Paperback)

I don't know if I like the "Extreme" in the title. In many ways this book just covers the basics. In some ways I like this book better than Baum's "Defintive Guide to LEGO Mindstorms", because it's not so NQC centric. In other ways I prefer the DGLM because it had more info on structural issues. There is a knack to making good LEGO structures, and a few tips really come in handy. I would have to say that I find the DGLM more extreme as far as the variety and originality of the projects.

11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extreme Mindstorms ... Extremely Excellent, February 24, 2001

By 

Lonewolf Astronomer "a fellow reader and life... (Trevor, Wisconsin USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Extreme Mindstorms: an Advanced Guide to Lego Mindstorms (Paperback)

Want to take your Mindstorms creations to new hieghts? Go beyond RIS? The ya have to get this book, a follow up to Dave Baum's Definitive Guide to Lego Mindstorms. You will not only see more NQC programming, but pbForth as well, and an excellent section on constructing your own sensors. If your the kid who doesn't grow up, an engineer at heart, and the owner of more than one RIS set because you are obssessed with Lego Mindstorms, then you cannot do without adding this book to your collection.