Basic Robot Building With LEGO Mindstorms NXT 2.0

Book excerpt: Basic Robot Building with LEGO® Mindstorms® NXT 2.0 ABSOLUTELY NO EXPERIENCE NEEDED! Learn LEGO® Mindstorms® NXT 2.0 from the ground up, hands-on, in full color! Ever wanted to build a robot? Now’s the time, LEGO® Mindstorms® NXT 2.0 is the technology, and this is the book. You can do this, even if you’ve never built or programmed anything! Don’t worry about where to begin: start right here. John Baichtal explains everything you need to know, one ridiculously simple step at a time... and shows you every key step with stunningly clear full-color photos! You won’t just learn concepts–you’ll put them to work in three start-to-finish projects, including three remarkable bots you can build right this minute, with zero knowledge of programming or robotics. It’s going to be simple–and it’s going to be fun. All you need is in the box–and in this book! Unbox your LEGO® Mindstorms® NXT 2.0 set, and discover exactly what you’ve got Build a Backscratching Bot immediately Connect the NXT Intelligent Brick to your computer (Windows or Mac) Navigate the Brick’s menus and upload programs Start writing simple new programs–painlessly Build the Clothesline Cruiser, a robot that travels via rope Program your robot’s movements Learn to create stronger, tougher models Help your robot sense everything from distance and movement to sound and color Build a miniature tank-treaded robot that knows how to rebound Write smarter programs by creating your own programming blocks Discover what to learn next, and which additional parts you might want to buy JOHN BAICHTAL is a contributor to MAKE magazine and Wired’s GeekDad blog. He is the co-author of The Cult of Lego (No Starch) and author of Hack This: 24 Incredible Hackerspace Projects from the DIY Movement (Que). Most recently he wrote Make: Lego and Arduino Projects for MAKE, collaborating with Adam Wolf and Matthew Beckler. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with his wife and three children.