Rating: 
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.
Rating:
Summary: Good on the software
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Good on the software
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Full view of Mindstorm posobilities
Review: Well written, docummented and explained.Plenty of examples and good references. Well worth the money.
Rating:
Summary: A Work of Art
Review: 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!
Rating:
Summary: Take Mindstorms RIS beyond!
Review: 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!
Rating: 
Summary: Software focused survey
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Software focused survey
Review: 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.
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