LEGO Mindstorm NXT Zoo

Have you got child that enjoys building things?  Well, do his or her future a favor throw out that regular set of LEGOs and replace it with LEGO’s Mindstorms NXT. Instead of building objects that just sit there and do nothing, they’ll be building simple to complex robots that are not only fun to create, but educational as well.  The robotics industry promises great careers and financial rewards for any young person going into the field and you’ll be doing your son or daughter, or any child you know for that matter, a great service exposing them to this field now. We mention this today because just last month No Starch Press released their new 336-page book entitled The LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Zoo!: A Kid-Friendly Guide to Building Animals with the NXT Robotics System, which promises “you’ll have hours of fun with these animal-like models that walk, crawl, hop, and roll!”

The book first introduces you to the NXT kit and reviews the parts you’ll need in order to begin building. Then, you’ll learn how to program with the NXT-G programming language, including how to make miniprograms called My Blocks that you can use to build larger programs. Finally, you’ll learn how to build each robot and program it to act like its real animal cousins. What kind of animals?

1. “Ribbit", a jumping frog
2. “Bunny", a hopping rabbit
3. “Sandy", a walking camel
4. “Spiderbot", an eight-legged spider that avoids objects and walks forward and backward
5. “Snout", a walking alligator that opens and closes its jaws
6. “LEGOsaurus", a lumbering dinosaur
7. “Pygmy", a walking elephant that raises and lowers its head
8. “Polecat", a rolling skunk that swings around, lifts its tail and shoots a dart
9. “Strutter", a rolling peacock that avoids objects, turns and flutters its tail feathers

The book comes with a companion web site that shows how to substitute parts and other information like downloadable instructions for making animal sounds for the book’s robots.

Fay Rhodes is co-author of The LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Idea Book: Design, Invent, and Build (No Starch), a 2007 member of LEGO’s MINDSTORMS Community Partners (MCP), and the only female contributor to the NXT Step Blog.

Psst!  You don’t need to be a kid to get into Lego Mindstorms NXT.

by Mark Fleming on March 03, 2008 in Robot Building, Toys