10 Cool LEGO Mindstorms: Dark Side Robots, Transports, and Creatures: Amazing Projects You Can Build in Under an Hour [Paperback, Illustrated]

Kevin Clague (Author), Soren Rolighed (Author), Miguel Agullo (Author), Hideaki Yabuki (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

LEGO MINDSTORMS let you design and program robots that can do just about anything!
The Dark Side Developer's Kit is targeted towards the young or novice LEGO MINDSTORMS designer, age 9 and up, although experienced MINDSTORMS fans will appreciate the unique possibilities offered by this kit as well. The Dark Side Developer's Kit includes special MINDSTORMS pieces that allow the user to create a host of Star Wars themed robots, creatures, and vehicles. It also comes with the Micro Scout, a mini-computer with 7 built-in programs, a motor, and a light sensor that brings the MINDSTORMS creations to life with a minimum of effort.

10 Cool LEGO MINDSTORMS Dark Side Robots, Transports, and Creatures: Amazing Projects You Can Build in Under an Hour provides step-by-step instructions and detailed illustrations for users of all skill levels and proficiencies.

A blend of the hugely popular LEGO and STAR WARS lines. Appealing to fans of both, this book will allow readers to build unique creations using the special parts found in the "LEGO MINDSTORMS: Dark Side Developer's Kit" that mimic the robots, vehicles and creatures found in the STAR WARS movies.
From out of the box to up and running in less than an hour. This book teaches users how to create 10 amazing projects, each in under an hour.
8-page color insert. An eight-page color insert illustrates the complete projects in full-detail.

About the Author

Hideaki Yabuki works as a Media Activist promoting new technologies to the next generation. To him, robotics is the most important of these technologies. He was first introduced to LEGO robots in 1985 by a friend of his who had recently returned from the MIT Media Lab with some LEGO Dacta products. His robot in this book, the Scorpion, is the result of much trial and error on his part. Kevin Clague graduated in 1983 from Iowa State University with a bachelor’s of Science degree in Computer Engineering. For the past 18 years, Kevin has worked as a Diagnostic Engineer at the Amdahl Corporation. For the last two years, he has also acted as a Senior Staff Engineer doing verification work at Sun Microsystems on their Ultra-Sparc V RISC processor. Kevin has two major hobbies: theatrical lighting and LEGO Mindstorms. Kevin has been playing with the RIS 1.5 for several years now and is currently working on LPub, an application to revolutionize the world of creating online! LEGO building instructions. Miguel Agullo was born in Spain but has lived abroad for long periods of time, from the Far East to South America, from central Europe to the U.S. His wide range of interests is responsible for his work in such diverse industries as finance, media, aeronautics, and antique trading.His building interests revolve around robotics, and specifically biomechanics: creating mechanisms that mimic the behavior of natural devices such as legs or arms. His creations include biped walkers, robots that jump, and a fully functional (including a brake!) LEGO motorcycle. Søren Rolighed is a data warehouse consultant, working on building and maintaining databases for telco-data in the largest data warehouse in Denmark. Like almost all Danish kids, he started playing with LEGO at an early age. As an adult he has continued with his passion for LEGOs, and the introduction of the LEGO Technics and LEGO Mindstorms kits opened up a whole new world of possibilities! J.P. Brown is a Consultant Environmental Conservator who has worked on such historical sites as Independence Hall, Philadelphia, PA and George Washington's mansion, Mount Vernon, VA. He first became interested in LEGO Mindstorms in July 1999, but his interest did not really take off until he discovered Dave Baum's Not Quite C (NQC) programming environment for the RCX brick later that year. He quickly became involved as a moderator for LEGO Mindstorms forums on the Web, and was later selected by LEGO as a preview builder for the Mindstorms Vision Command. His robot, Biped II, won the February 2001 Mindstorms Hall of Fame, Special Competition, but he is perhaps best known for his Rubik's Cube solving robot, CubeSolver, which was featured in the New York Times in October 2001 and other papers around the world.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Syngress; 1 edition (August 10, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1931836590
• ISBN-13: 978-1931836593
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #316,140 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars NOT FOR RIS 2.0!!!, January 3, 2006

By	a reviewer "a reviewer" (Utah, USA) - See all my reviews

The description should state this! My 8 year old son, who is a Mindstorms genius, has wanted this for so long! How disappointed he was Christmas morning. "This doesn't use my pieces, or even my RCX" he said--very disapppointing, and I think it should clearly say this is not for the CURRENT version of mindstorms. This book is completely useless to us, he cannot build ANYTHING in the book with his Mindstorms RIS 2.0 set.
We have another book from this line, and it is for RIS 2.0, and my son loves it.
Update: We learned this book is for the Lego Mindstorms "Dark Side Developer" kit (Star Wars). It is no longer made, but we found a set on ebay. Son loves it--and now this book, too!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Assemble your own Star Wars action robots, April 28, 2004

By	Charles Ashbacher "([e-mail])" (Marion, Iowa United States([e-mail])) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

The robots described in detail in this book are really cool, and once you look at them, your patience will be tried until you get to the assembly stage. Constructing the robots is easy, each one is split into a series of small steps where the parts to be added are listed in a caption and the placement of the parts on the robot are highlighted on a second figure. We have all faced situations where we had to follow directions to put something together and struggled to make sense of the diagrams. In this case, that should not be a problem, these are some of the most understandable diagrams that I have ever seen.
The robots are all from the Star Wars series of movies and associated novels, which makes them even better. Most people with an interest in robots have seen the Star Wars movies, so it is wondrous to watch the robot gradually grow into something you have seen in action.
Lego Mindstorms is a robot kit that can be effectively used in class work from elementary school up though graduate school. In this book you will learn how to build some of the best robots, which will appeal to students throughout this spectrum.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fairly Good, January 2, 2003

By A Customer

This is a wonderful inspirational book! There are lots of mechanisms here that are good to play around with and modify. Every robot has some interesting functions - since it's using the Microscout only, everything (often two functions) is done with only one motor! It's also inspiring seeing what can be done with limited pieces. Every model in the book is built ONLY using DSDK parts!

The pictures (or rather, CAD renderings) are crystal-clear, thanks to Kevin's LPub. The downside is that they're black-and-white, but it's fairly easy to tell the difference between a white part and a red part.

There's not much commentary in this book - it's mostly instructions. That makes it easier to follow, but it doesn't help much if you have a question about modifying the robot.

Overall I rate it three and a half stars for good robots and good instructions but bad commentary. Still a good book, though!