Product Description

This amply illustrated book is about building some of Leonardo da Vincis most famous inventions with LEGOs new breathtaking robot technology, the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT. In this book, you will revive such fascinating devices as the flying machine, the aerial screw, the revolving bridge, the double leaf spring catapult, and the armored car, five centuries after their creation by the great Renaissance engineer. Using some of the most advanced programming environments for the NXT, you will make robots that work, move, and respond the way Leonardo intended his original inventions to do 500 years ago.

By engineering the LEGO models contained in this book you will not only become acquainted with the MINDSTORMS NXT technology but also with strategies to build advanced robots with NXT and to program them using different state-of-the-art NXT programming languages such as NXT-G, NXC, RobotC, pbLua, and leJOS NXJ.

For all five robots, historical background information is provided. Detailed high-quality step-by-step building instructions as well as an elaborate guide for each single program enable both the inexperienced LEGO user as well as the NXT aficionado to become acquainted with the art of producing marvelous NXT creations and make use of many sophisticated features of the NXT.

This book will unleash the creative powers that slumber in everyone and combine them with the pure joy of playing. But beware: you might be surprised by the stupendous results this combination is apt to spawn.

In this book, you'll:

• Get to know Leonardos most famous inventions and the theory behind them
• Build LEGO robots with the NXT kit
• Make use of advanced features of the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT
• Program NXT robots with state-of-the-art NXT programming environments
• Meet the bustling worldwide community that has developed around the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Advanced

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #73306 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 369 pages

About the Author

Matthias Scholz is a member of the LEGO Mindstorms Community Partners Program. His NXT-related Web site is extremely popular. He is also a frequent contributor to the well-known NXT blog, The NXT STEP. He majored in Mathematics at the University of Bayreuth and has held various positions in German IT enterprises.

Customer Reviews

Bad pictures
I have enjoyed many of the books in this series, but was severely disappointed when I got this one. The ideas are great - and would be really useful to my students, if the pictures that accompanied them were in any way able to be seen clearly. I tried and failed to build several of the models after my students all expressed frustration at trying to figure out what was being portrayed.

Relating Old and New
Just the idea behind this book makes it worth purchasing. Taking the ideas of one of the greatest minds in history and applying it to a brilliant robotic platform is genius. Relating the robots to Da Vinci's designs is a great learning experience for old and young. My 8 year-old is becoming quite a fan of Leonardo due to the use of this book.

The bots in the book are great, and the potential for extensibility is even greater. There are quite a few new NXT books out this year and this is definitely one of best especially if you are interested in tying the evolution of physics and mechanization to modern technology.

I highly recommend this book. If you are running a Lego Mindstorms team or teaching robotics using the NXT platform, do yourself a favor and pick up this book, it's a great way to enhance your curriculum.

Boy, you better have a LOT of Lego
I was really looking forward to this book, and when I got it I enjoyed reading it. The problem is I can't build any of the projects. Each needs very many regular Lego pieces so if were not heavily into Lego as a kid you are out of luck. I priced the cost of the Lego bits ala carte for the simplest project, the revolving bridge, and it would be about $20. And not just that. Each project requires more axels and pulleys and gears that come with the NXT set. So unless you have a bunch of friends that also have NXT you are out of luck. So I am very disapointed. I wish they had put the hardware requirements on the cover and I would have saved my money.