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On Saturday, April 19th, I’m having a book signing at a Barnes & Noble in
Austin, Texas for my book The Unofficial LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Inventor’s Guide
(No Starch Press, 2007). The signing will begin at 2PM, and I’ll be bringing two
robots with me to the event: Tag-Bot (shown on front cover of book) and also
“Spike” from the NXT set.
Following is the address of the Barnes & Noble where the book signing will be
held:
Sunset Valley Village
5601 Brodie Lane Suite 300
Austin, TX 78745
Hope to see you there!
Thanks,
David J. Perdue
Inventor’s Guide companion website: http://www.nxtguide.davidjperdue.com/
Inventor’s Guide companion blog: http://www.nxtblog.davidjperdue.com/
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Flickr
Gallery
For a third year, TexLUG was invited to display at the Healthy Baby and Child
Expo in San Antonio on March 8th and 9th, 2008. While only two TexLUG members
were able to attend, the layout was nevertheless a success. The theme this year
was “Around the World in 80 days”, featuring well known landmarks and monuments
from around the globe, along with a few LEGO sets and MOCs.
--Tony
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I’m having a book signing this month for my new book The Unofficial LEGO
MINDSTORMS NXT Inventor’s Guide (No Starch Press), and I decided to officially
announce the book here on LUGNET and invite everyone who lives in the Round
Rock, Texas area to stop by the signing (details below).
First, The Unofficial LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Inventor’s Guide is a general guide
to the LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT set (retail version). In a nutshell, the book teaches
you how to effectively create NXT robots. It examines all the pieces in the NXT
set and discusses building techniques; covers the NXT-G programming language and
introduces some text-based languages; and provides six projects with building,
programming, and testing instructions. There are also three appendixes,
including an NXT Piece Library and an NXT-G Quick Reference. At the book’s
companion website, you can read a complete description, the table of contents,
and sample pages. In addition, you’ll find pictures of all the book’s projects
(robots), the source code (NXT-G), and more. Furthermore, I’ve started a
companion blog, and I also have several videos of the robots on YouTube. Here
are the links:
The book signing is scheduled for January 12th, 2008 at 2PM, and I’ll be
bringing two robots from the book with me (probably Tag-Bot and Guard-Bot).
Following is the address of the Barnes & Noble location where the book signing
will be held:
La Frontera Village
2701 Parker Road Bldg A Suite 700
Round Rock, TX 78681
See you there! :)
David J. Perdue
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It was really nice having Tony visit our show and share his steam MOCs with
us and the public at the show. I will be posting a review of the show within
a day or two...
Kirk H
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Here is the promised review.
The show was sponsored by the Texas & Pacific Historical Society in Marshall to
raise money for the T&P museum and the old historic depot. The Marshall Civic
Center housed the show. In addition to the NETLTC, there were 2 HO layouts, 1 N
scale, and 1 Lionel layout. We were debuting our modular tables and we only had
6 full sized and 2 skinny tables finished - so we displayed a much smaller
layout than at previous shows (10 x 15ish). Our smallness was a benefit because
the show organizers miscalculated the meeting space and didn’t have room for us
if we had been full sized.
The show was lightly attended with the strongest crowd numbers showing up Sunday
afternoon. There had been some media coverage on Saturday. I was interviewed
for a local radio station. As usual, the Lego trains are a real crowd pleaser
and we get the usual - ‘didn’t know Lego made trains’, etc...
We have done shows in Tyler, Tx and now in Marshall, TX - all of these shows
have been for rail historical societies. One of my personal Lego train goals is
to model the fallen flags from East Texas. So the Cotton Belt folks in Tyler
(birthplace of the St Louis and Southwestern - aka Cotton Belt) really like my
Cotton Belt engines and the T&P folks (birthplace in Marshall) really like my
T&P engines in ‘Swamp Holly Orange’. Well - Lego orange is close enough! So we
have won some friends.
Our future plans are to build more tables and improve the layout and add more
engines and rolling stock in road colors from East Texas...
for pictures visit the NETLTC website:
NETLTC
also see tony’s pictures - links below...
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I took some pictures of my time there, plus some video. I’ll link to the
video once I can figure out how to get it out of the camcorder and online.
Full
Gallery
-Tony
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In lugnet.events, Anthony Sava wrote:
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I just recently found out about the existence of the North Eastern Texas LEGO
Train Club (NETLTC), and even more recently discovered that they were going
to be attending the train show in Marshall, Texas. I was only able to attend
one day but the members of NETLTC were kind enough to let me run my trains on
their layout, plus they made me an official member :)
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It was really nice having Tony visit our show and share his steam MOCs with us
and the public at the show. I will be posting a review of the show within a day
or two...
Kirk H
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I took some pictures of my time there, plus some video. I’ll link to the
video once I can figure out how to get it out of the camcorder and online.
Full
Gallery
-Tony
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I just recently found out about the existence of the North Eastern Texas LEGO
Train Club (NETLTC), and even more recently discovered that they were going to
be attending the train show in Marshall, Texas. I was only able to attend one
day but the members of NETLTC were kind enough to let me run my trains on their
layout, plus they made me an official member :)
I took some pictures of my time there, plus some video. I’ll link to the video
once I can figure out how to get it out of the camcorder and online.
Full Gallery
-Tony
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In lugnet.org.us.texlug, Anthony Sava wrote:
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TexLUG was invited to attend the Institute of Texan Cultures’ Halloween
Howl’r event in San Antonio, which corresponded with their “Here Be Dragons!”
exhibit. We were asked to put together a medieval/dragon themed display, and
while only Chris MacDougald and I were able to attend, between the two of us
I think we did pretty good (well, the young master MacDougald helped, too).
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Looks like it was a lot of fun! I esp. like the use of upside-down 1x1 orange
bricks for the kiddies trick-or-treat bags!! Very nice detail for sure.
Imagine my surprise when I saw that you managed to take a photo of BrickLink’s
main Admin/owner as seen below! ;-)
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TexLUG was invited to attend the Institute of Texan Cultures’ Halloween Howl’r
event in San Antonio, which corresponded with their “Here Be Dragons!” exhibit.
We were asked to put together a medieval/dragon themed display, and while only
Chris MacDougald and I were able to attend, between the two of us I think we did
pretty good (well, the young master MacDougald helped, too).
We also added a ‘Trick or Seek’ to our layout - a laundry list of hidden
findables in the layout, with a little prize going to whomever could find
everything on the list. On the list was everything from 10 Harry Potters to
Spongebob and David Hasselhoff. It went so well I have suggested a seek and
find be a permanent part of all of our future public displays (though our mail
server seems to be down at present).
The lighting was horrible for photography in the museum, so I apologize in
advance.
Full Gallery
--Tony
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What: TexLUG-SA Meeting
When: May 19, 2007 - 1PM
Where: Goerke’s Country Tavern
Who: TexLUG Austin, San Antonio, and the surrounding areas. Or anyone else
interested in LEGO.
Why: Because we want too.
See: http://www.texlugsa.org/2007/05/09/may-meeting/ for more details.
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This past weekend TexLUG Houston held a private event for the children of the
Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital. It was a pretty mixed bag of themes, but
everyone had fun. The LEGO Company donated 200 X-Pods to be given away to the
children who attended.
Pics 01 - 38
Post-Mod Gallery
We’d like to thank Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital for having us, and the
LEGO group for the donated sets. I think we really brightened some days.
--Tony
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Would love to get together with you and talk about the set, share ideas, etc.
Or do you know ne1 that has the set? Or plans to get it? Or is leaning toward
getting it?
Y’all may remember me from two Austin meetings: the last one I went to was 2002
(I think), which met at NI and I sold a lot of my LEGO (made like $400). I
sold some cabinets of LEGO and most of my train stuff.
But I did not sell my LEGO Tecnic parts or LEGO robotics stuff, knowing that
someday I would use them again... Perhaps that day is now.
PS--Little did we know that NI would be the software develop for nxt. Or did we
know that? :)
Alan
A,TX
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Howdy!
All the AFOLs from Texas and neighboring states are invited to come see and/or
join the Fall 2006 State-Wide meeting and public display in Houston!
The details:
When: October 7-8th 2006
Saturday 7th 10am-5pm Public Hours 1pm-5pm
Sunday 8th 1pm-5pm Public Hours 1pm-3pm
Where: Clear Lake City - Country Freeman Branch, aka The Freeman Library
16616 Diana Lane
Houston, TX 77062
http://www.hcpl.net/branchinfo/fm/fminfo.htm
Theme: This season's theme is a combination of Castle and Space, so bring your
CCC buildings and your Moonbase Modules. As always, MOCs of any theme are
welcome to be displayed.
See y'all there!
--Anthony
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All,
This Sunday's TexLUG Austin meeting is
cancelled.
The robotic line follower contest
scheduled for 6/11 has been postponed.
Look for an announcement here for a
future date.
Future TexLUG Austin gatherings will be
announced as they are arranged.
-Tim
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All,
Come on by the next Austin TexLUG meeting this coming
Sunday. (And yes, it *is* on Mother's Day. Show your
Mom you love her by getting out of the house for a
couple hours!) Particulars are below.
If you have a creation to show, bring it. I'll be
bringing tiles for the upcoming line-following
contest (the paint is drying as I type this), so if
you'd like to try out your 'bot before the 6/11
contest, now's the time.
For contest details, see:
http://www.io.com/~rueger/lego/texlugaustin/line2006/
See you there...
-Tim
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Date: The second Sunday every month (next meeting 5/14/06).
Time: 2:30pm-5:30pm
Location:
Austin Public Library, Little Walnut Creek Branch
835 W. Rundberg Ln.
Austin, TX 78758
(Just west of the Lamar/Rundberg intersection)
Phone: (512) 836-8975
URL: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/library/little_walnut.htm
(has map link)
Come on out and join in the fun!
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Howdy!
TexLUG Houston will be having a meeting this Saturday the 22nd of April. Feel
free to come on by and have some fun!
Who: TexLUG Houston
What: General Meeting
When: Saturday, April 22, 2006
Where:
19525 Wied Road, Suite #106.
Spring, TX 77379
Why: Why not?
Time: Setup - 11 AM. Start - 1 PM. End - Cook it 'till it's done.
Phone: 281-651-7747
See you there!
--Anthony
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Folks,
The Austin chapter of the Texas Lego Users Group
(TexLUG) is holding a robotic line following contest
on June 11, 2006.
In this line following contest, robots attempt to
complete a specified race course by following
a black line on a white background. The robot
completing three laps of the course in the shortest
time is the winner.
There will be two age groups for the competition,
under 13 years old, and 13 years and up.
Complete rules may be found here:
http://www.io.com/~rueger/lego/texlugaustin/line2006/
as well as helpful links to other line following
robots.
-Tim
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All,
The next Austin TexLUG meeting will be this coming
Sunday, April 9. Come on out and show off what
you've been working on!
If you have questions about Mindstorms NXT, come
by and we'll see if we can help you with the
answers. (The library's wifi is A Nice Thing.)
See you there!
-Tim
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Date: The second Sunday every month (next meeting 4/9/06).
Time: 2:30pm-5:30pm
Location:
Austin Public Library, Little Walnut Creek Branch
835 W. Rundberg Ln.
Austin, TX 78758
(Just west of the Lamar/Rundberg intersection)
Phone: (512) 836-8975
URL: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/library/little_walnut.htm
(has map link)
Come on out and join in the fun!
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Folks,
Attending the 3/12 TexLUG Austin meeting were:
Louis Davis
Lee Rahe
Tim Rueger
Ed Southerland
Ed brought a few more of his custom minifigs, but most
of his MOCs were really nice xpod-based spaceships. I
really liked his stylings in various space themes,
including Blacktron, M:Tron, Ice Planet 2002, Spyrius,
and Life on Mars.
Lee proudly showed off some excellent-condition pieces
from his recent vintage Lego acquisitions. I, for one,
was very impressed with the details that Lego's
injection molding was achieving in the late 50's and
early 60's.
Louis was a first-time attendee; he got a Mindstorms kit
around Christmas, and was looking for help and ideas on
what to do with it.
On that note, I showed a simple line following robot
from Jonathan Knudsen's O'Reilly Mindstorms book to
demonstrate an upcoming line-following robotics contest.
Look for rules and schedules to be posted in the next
week.
Adminstrivia: I'd mentioned to a few folks that the
Little Walnut Creek library was scheduled to be closed
for remodeling in May 2006. However, the remodeling has
been delayed some months, so I'm working on extending
our 2nd-Sunday meeting slot reservation there for as
long as possible.
Please keep in mind that we will eventually have to find
a new place to meet. If you have any good suggestions,
please pass them along (either to the list or by private
email).
Play well,
-Tim
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Brickshelf gallery:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=174175
Lee, Louis, and Ed:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1682709
Ed's MOCs:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1682715
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1682716
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1682717
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1682718
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1682719
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1682720
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1682721
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1682722
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1682723
Lee's vintage Lego:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1682710
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1682711
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1682712
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1682713
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1682714
Jonathan Knudsen's simple line following robot:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=1682724
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/lmstorms/
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All,
The next Austin TexLUG meeting will be this Sunday,
March 12. It's been a few months since we've
gotten together, so come on out and show off what
you've been working on!
I'll be shortly announcing and posting rules for
a line following and maze solving robotics
contest, just to keep y'all sharp while we await
Mindstorms NXT. Look for a demo at the meeting.
I'll also be bringing the mountains that I
provided for the recent display in San Antonio,
along with my photos from the event.
See you there!
-Tim
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Date: The second Sunday every month (next meeting 3/12/06).
Time: 2:30pm-5:30pm
Location:
Austin Public Library, Little Walnut Creek Branch
835 W. Rundberg Ln.
Austin, TX 78758
(Just west of the Lamar/Rundberg intersection)
Phone: (512) 836-8975
URL: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/library/little_walnut.htm
(has map link)
Come on out and join in the fun!
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