Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

  • Apple
  • Android
  • Windows Phone
  • Android

To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number.
Download to your computer
Kindle Cloud Reader
Facebook Twitter Pinterest <Embed>
  • List Price: $29.99
  • Save: $12.02 (40%)
Free Shipping for Prime Members | Fast, FREE Shipping with Amazon Prime
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
Winning Design!: LEGO MIN... has been added to your Cart
FREE Shipping on orders over $25.
Used: Good | Details
Sold by Sandchica
Fulfilled by Amazon
Condition: Used: Good
Comment: Good Condition. Cover shows signs of use and wear. Ships From Amazon and Prime Shipping Available.

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service we offer sellers that lets them store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we directly pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products. Something we hope you'll especially enjoy: FBA items qualify for FREE Shipping and .

If you're a seller, Fulfillment by Amazon can help you increase your sales. We invite you to learn more about Fulfillment by Amazon .

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon
Flip to back Flip to front
Listen Playing... Paused   You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more
See all 3 images

Winning Design!: LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Design Patterns for Fun and Competition (Technology in Action) Paperback – December 14, 2010

by James Trobaugh (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars 36 customer reviews
See all 5 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions
Price
New from Used from
Kindle
"Please retry"
$17.07
— —
Paperback
"Please retry"
$17.97
$11.48 $5.81
Free Two-Day Shipping for College Students with Prime Student Free%20Two-Day%20Shipping%20for%20College%20Students%20with%20Amazon%20Student

Save up to 90% on textbooks Rent Textbooks
$17.97 Free Shipping for Prime Members | Fast, FREE Shipping with Amazon Prime In Stock. Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
click to open popover

Frequently Bought Together

  • Winning Design!: LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Design Patterns for Fun and Competition (Technology in Action)
  • +
  • The LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT 2.0 Discovery Book: A Beginner's Guide to Building and Programming Robots
  • +
  • The Unofficial LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT 2.0 Inventor's Guide
Total price: $58.44
One of these items ships sooner than the other. Show details
Buy the selected items together

Special Offers and Product Promotions

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Read more
NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE
Ignite your imagination
with these editor's picks from Kindle books. See more

Product Details

  • Series: Technology in Action
  • Paperback: 312 pages
  • Publisher: Apress; 1st ed. edition (December 14, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1430229640
  • ISBN-13: 978-1430229643
  • Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 0.7 x 9.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #827,585 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 starsHorrible printing - so-so material
By NXT dad on October 27, 2011
Format: Paperback
Unfortunately, the book preview is completely wrong for this book. The actual book uses very cheap B&W printing. As a result, the pictures of robots and the instructions for building models are completely illegible. As an adult, I was able to piece together the models with some guesswork. However, the target audience for the book is late elementary/middle school kids. My kids found it extremely frustrating to use the book. I ended up purchasing the PDF version of the book. The illustrations in the PDF are in color and are much higher quality than the printed book! I would recommend the PDF version for anyone considering this book.

There are some good ideas and some basic designs to get started with. However, the material is very disorganized and wordy/repetitive. In addition, I think there is too much emphasis on "winning" rather than learning.

So... 1 star for the printing and 2 stars for the content.
Comment 22 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsWell Done!
By J. Kelly on December 22, 2010
Format: Paperback
I've participated in many FLL tournaments as a technical judge, and I've seen many good robot designs hampered by a lack of understanding of some basic design principles. I've now completed reading the book and I'm quite impressed with the author's decision to break the book into four sections, each focusing on a particular skill (or skills) and providing plenty of real world examples of HOW and WHY things are done... or should be done.

The book is HEAVY on figures... and that's a good thing. Many of the concepts that the author writes about simply cannot be understood well without some hands-on explanations. That's why teams will be pleased to see diagrams and examples using real NXT parts to explain concepts such as turning, squaring up along a wall, and line following. And he didn't leave out some great discussion on attachments - one of the most important concepts for teams who wish to successfully accomplish multiple game table elements.

Finally, the author provides some tips and suggestions for managing your programs as well as presenting them (and the robot) to the technical judging team. And you'll also find complete building instructions for the DemoBot... a real robot that the author uses to demonstrate techniques throughout the book... build it and THEN read the book!

All in all, I'm very pleased with the book - I think new/rookie FLL teams will receive the most benefit from the book, but experienced teams are sure to find some stuff in here that will improve their scores and successes.
Comment 6 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat, inclusive book
By Studying llfe in New York on March 23, 2013
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
This book delivers what it promises: winning design. It's especially useful for teams or coaches for First Lego League (FLL). If read thoroughly, it covers just about every detail you'd need to know to get a novice team up and running. If this is your first FLL team, I'd suggest going through before the season starts, or as soon as you get started. It also will even help an experienced team to think in the way that judges are most impressed by when designing your robot. Does it cover every aspect and every possibility for robot design? No. Should it? No. If there were typos, they didn't distract me. I'd consider it high on my list of my reference books for FLL.

Part of the process for FLL IS figuring out how to look at a situation and take an iterative approach to process improvement. This book more than gets you there, if you use the information as a sound jumping off point.

FYI-- Here would be my list of other reference books, in order my frequency of use:
The LEGO Technic Idea Books: Simple Machines, Fantastic Contraptions, and Wheeled Wonders all by Yoshihito Isogawa
First Lego League, The Unofficial Guide by James Floyd Kelly and Jonathan Daudelin
The Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 Discovery Book by Laurens Valk
Building Robots with Lego Mindstorms NXT by Astolfo, Ferrari and Ferrari
Forbidden Lego by Pilegaard and Dooley
Lego Mindstorms NXT-G Programming Guide by James Floyd Kelly
Benchmarks for Science Literacy, Project 2061, published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science
Comment 3 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsAn Excellent Resource!
By luv2teach on December 20, 2010
Format: Paperback
This book provides extremely useful information for preparing and getting ahead in the robotics competition. As a rookie coach, I wish I had access to this book prior to this year's FLL tournament. It can be very helpful to both rookie and experienced teams/coaches as it discusses many design and programming topics that teams will encounter so that teams can achieve consistent results with their robots. There are lots of typos but a small distraction for what this book has to offer. I highly recommend.
Comment 8 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
1.0 out of 5 starsI want so much to write a good review for this book
By R. Greene on August 29, 2015
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
I want so much to write a good review for this book, especially since I found the information useful enough to purchase two more copies for my favorite FLL teams. But I have to vent my extreme disappointment in the demobot graphics. The print pictures are so terrible as to be almost useless. APRESS has an ebook version with decent graphics but you are required to purchase that for an additional cost. The graphics in the electronic version are color and very nice but in all honesty, Apress should be ashamed at making people have to make an additional purchase for this version even at $5.00. Not the whole book, but IMHO the color building illustrations should be free to those who can prove they have the print version.
Comment One person found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse

Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 starsThis is the best book I have found for FLL competition

This is the best book I have found for FLL competition. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is because it needs to be updated for the newer EV3 software. Read more

Published 12 months ago by Brett Palmer
2.0 out of 5 starsgreat content

The pdf I found online is great. Good technical concepts I can use to demonstrate to my FLL team (although an update to EV3 would be awesome). Read more

Published 15 months ago by Matt J. Allington
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Excellent Resourse

Published 19 months ago by Laura Charleston
3.0 out of 5 starsThree Stars

Good content but WOW the editing is terrible! Really distracting!

Published 22 months ago by Erika
5.0 out of 5 starsThis book is perfect!

My nephew loves a challenge. This book is perfect!

Published on January 3, 2015 by Erin Cagle
5.0 out of 5 starsGreat Resource for FLL Coaches

I wish I had this book my first year of coaching FIRST Lego League. Lots of good idea in here. I hope they make an updated version to include the EV3 system.

Published on November 25, 2014 by J. Morris
4.0 out of 5 stars... First Lego League team and this book worked very nicely for her...

My wife is coaching my son's First Lego League team and this book worked very nicely for her and my son.

Published on October 16, 2014 by Donald Mack
4.0 out of 5 starsFour Stars

Out of date since the newest models have the EV3 brick.

Published on August 22, 2014 by Ernest Bohnet
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

excellent book

Published on August 16, 2014 by neel khare
5.0 out of 5 starsAwesome!

This is the first book of this type I have read cover to cover. It is well organized, systematic, and extremely helpful! Read more

Published on April 14, 2014 by Karen Black

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

Winning Design!: LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Design Patterns for Fun and Competition (Technology in Action)
Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway
This item: Winning Design!: LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Design Patterns for Fun and Competition (Technology in Action)
Set up a giveaway

There's a problem loading this menu right now.

Learn more about Amazon Prime.

Pages with Related Products. See and discover other items: my big farm book, lego engineering