Customer Reviews

The Unofficial Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS Robots

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Given my good experiences with O'Reilly books in the past, I was extremely surprised by the very *poor* production values in this book.

I can't figure out what parts go into the robots based on the pictures which are too dark and poorly focused.

A much better book with great pictures is "Dave Baum's Definitive Guide To Lego Mindstorms" which is also less choppy and I think explains things better.

As someone with no experience with Lego Mindstorms, but fascinated by the topic, I found this book an excellent introduction to not only the mindstorm kit itself, but also, at a very basic level, the issues of robotics. The book also does an excellent job of surveying the landscape of programming platforms that can be used to program mindstorms and points to many online resources for every aspect of building and programming lego robots.

If you are a professional robotics researcher or an experienced Mindstorms developer this book might be a bit basic for you, but for a new comer this book provides a very nice introduction. While in general I like many of the O'Reilly titles, I don't think I've ever had so much fun reading one.

Although my enjoyment of this book is tempered by flaws in its illustrations and instructions, it is well worth buying.

The book offers a number of strong points. First, it brings together a wide range of information on MindStorms from sources other than Lego. The chapter on building customized sensors is thorough and enlightening. Throughout the book, information on user-created programming languages and environments and URLs for on-line resources are helpful.

Second, the robot designs offered by the author are fantastic. For instance, Minerva, a robot designed to pick up and return objects, has an elegant drive train that takes it straight forward but turns in reverse. It also has a forward grabber which, with one motor, both grabs and lifts. These robots are creative, educational, and fun.

However, the instructions to build them leave something to be desired. The book is illustrated with black-and-white photographs, labeled with colors where necessary, that in many cases don't provide enough contrast to easily see what has been done in the step. Additionally, there are some mistakes in the photos, showing pieces which aren't added until future steps.

Although this makes building the robots more difficult, it doesn't make it impossible, and the book's other features more than make up for it. This is indeed a worthwhile guide for anyone who wants to take MindStorms "beyond what's in the box."

After seeing the Lego Mindstorms robots on the Computer Chronicles TV show, I was quite interested. But this book pushed me over the top. It is a good introduction. But more important, it covers the alternatives to the RCX programming environment supplied by LEGO. The coverage of the C-like and Forth-like alternatives alone makes this book worth the money. Some web links appear out of date, but that is to be expected with a book 10 minutes old. No CD ROM, some good samples and some detailed construction examples. A good place to start getting serious about the RCX.

This is a well written book by a person comfortable and able in describing the different software platforms and options available for the lego mindstorms set.(This is a surprisingly lively field with C ,forth , visual basic and much else besides putting in an appearance.)But the actual mechanical engineering of building these robots is only covered in literally about 3 or 4 pages including one part where he talks about interesting ways you can set up drive trains that will do 2 seperate things depending on the direction of the motor.NOT just go forward and backwards! lol....Otherwise its really all software.So as I say its in fact an excellent book but just realise that emphasis before you buy it.

Your view of this book may vary based on your intent. The publisher's text on Amazon when it describes what's in the book starts the list with: "hands-on robot projects, with complete building instructions...." I had hoped that would be a major focus of the book -- a series of "cool robots" that I could build. Instead, the robot in the book is quite simple, and not additive to the multiple robots LEGO describes in its various kits. The programming language with the kits is fairly simple and flexible -- I wanted more robot ideas, since I find the physical construction of robust robots to be the challenging part (as you may guess, I come from Microsoft, not Boeing). On the other hand, if you're a software junky and want to see a half-dozen semi to fairly well-baked programming language alternatives to what LEGO offers, this book may be for you.

After purchasing The Unofficial Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS Robots by Jonathan B. Knudsen, I was very excited about working on each project in the book. Then I continued to read and found myself getting disappointed with the terrible photos, less then detailed descriptions, and easy working robots. I though this book was going to blow me away with new robots creations but it fell short. For the price I paid I expected more, more robots, more information, more of everything. I have to admit, the information on the different O/S's are great but tying to get them to work was hell. It was better than 3 stars but not by much. Buy this book if you want more info on programs, but look on the web if you want more robot creations.

This book is very well written and easy to read. It starts off slow and simple, and advances into programming "Behavior" based robots, which is very interesting. The chapters on custom sensors don't say that much, but they are still a good intro to homebrew sensors. If you want a compilation of tons of robots to build, buy "Dave Baum's Definitive Guide". If you want a disorganized 'Everything but the kitchen sink' book, buy "Extreme Mindstorms". If you want well written, well structured, well thought out and thought proviking, buy this book.

Your an adult that never grew out of loving toys, an engineer at heart, and have been bitten by the Lego Mindstorms Robotics Invention Set. Ya have built everything in the Constructopedia, met all of the challenges but are now looking to go beyond the box. Where do you start? Jonathan Knudsen's Unofficial Guide to Ledo Mindstorms may be one of the best answers. He does a great job with construction tips, and provides a great survey of programming alternatives such as NQC, pbForth, and LegOS. He also has some insight into constructing your own sensors. Best of all, each chapter concludes with links to relevant sites on the WWW. I highly recommend it!

I have recently bought a copy of this book. Many of these projects and info are very good to know to programming the RCX and a crash course in legOS, pbForth, etc.