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The Unofficial Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS Robots

The Unofficial Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS Robots

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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: This book is ALMOST a great book
Review: 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.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: This book is ALMOST a great book
Review: 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.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Unofficial Guide to Lego Mindstorms Robots
Review: 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 Some web links appear out of date, but that is to be expected with a book 10 minutes old.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.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Unofficial Guide to Lego Mindstorms Robots
Review: 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.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A treasure=trove of information, but unsatisfactory pictures
Review: 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."

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent introduction to Mindstorms
Review: 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.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent introduction to Mindstorms
Review: 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.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Surprisingly poor production values for O'Reilly
Review: 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.

Rating: 0 stars
Summary: Computer-rendered building instructions are online
Review: If you're having trouble reading the building instructions, or if you're using RIS 1.5 instead of RIS 1.0, please check out the full-color computer-rendered building instructions at O'Reilly's web site. All the projects can now be built with RIS 1.5.

To get to the instructions, go to O'Reilly's home page and search for "tread hubs". Choose the first item that is returned.

Alternately, you can jump directly to the building instructions using this URL:

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lmstorms/building/

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Work of Art
Review: 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.


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