Subject:
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Re: Building Robots with Lego Mindstorms (long)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Thu, 8 Nov 2001 14:36:28 GMT
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Viewed:
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708 times
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I read the sample chapter, I have to say it is what am looking for, a
handbook of LEGO Building, I hope I have chance to translate it into Chinese...
Zhengrong
In lugnet.announce, Mario Ferrari writes:
> Dear friends,
>
> during the last months I mentioned in a few occasions (in lugnet.robotics)
> that my brother Giulio and I were writing a book. Now the time has come to
> officially present it.
>
> The title of the book is Building Robots with Lego Mindstorms, and as the
> title promises it deals much more with building techniques rather than with
> programming. We talked about programming too, because as you know it's often
> impossible to separate the topics when dealing with robotics, but we
> provided just a few examples and in many occasions described only some
> possible algorithms instead of supplying full code. We think that there are
> many good books that already cover the topic very well.
>
> The book is organised into three sections: Tools, Projects, Contests, plus a
> few appendixes. The Tools section describes the main building techniques
> starting from the very basics, and explains with simple words all the
> physical principles required to manage gears, levers, pneumatics, motors
> etc. It talks about: Lego geometry, gears, motors, sensors, modular
> architecture, typical mobile configurations, pneumatics. It also includes
> tips about structured programming, simple mathematical tools, techniques to
> find and grab objects, and introduces to navigation methods.
>
> The Projects section describes about thirty complete robots, which range
> from very simple platforms that change direction after collisions, to some
> classic projects like line-following, to much more sophisticated robots
> designed to simulate flight or to play chess. In the middle there are many
> different robots, aimed at walking, skiing, playing drum or piano, emulating
> renowned droids or animals, solving mazes, drawing and writing, watering
> plants and more. We want to highlight that we did NOT provide step-by-step
> instructions to replicate our robots. We described them in detail, showing
> also a lot of pictures from any view, but we leave a lot of work to the
> reader, who has to find out its own implementation solutions. The concept
> behind the book is that we want to spur the reader's curiosity and to
> provide starting points to his own creativity.
>
> The last section talks about Contests. We describe some typical challenges,
> but more important we explain how attending a contest entails a sort of
> "paradigm shift": from building a robot that "works" to building a robot
> "optimised" for a given task.
>
> The book has about 650 pages, contains more than 500 b&w photos and a 16
> pages color insert. It's published by Syngress Publishing. The official book
> page is here:
>
> http://www.syngress.com/catalog/sg_main.cfm?pid=1741
>
> There are many LUGNET friends who played a role in getting this book done.
> Actually, this book would have not been written without the contributions of
> the entire LUGNET Robotics community. Its members are incredibly creative,
> competent, helpful, and friendly, and they are always willing to share ideas
> and solutions with other people. We have attempted to give proper credit to
> all the people whose ideas we mentioned in the book, and we apologize in
> advance for those people who have been unintentionally left out.
>
> Special thanks go to:
>
> - Brian Bagnall for suggesting our names to Syngress Publishing when he
> heard they were looking for an author to write a book focused on ideas and
> techniques for building MINDSTORMS robots.
>
> - Jonathan Knudsen, who encouraged us in embarking upon the adventure of
> writing a book, and who helped us in understanding the world of technical
> publishing.
>
> - Guido Truffelli, who patiently read every page of the manuscript. His
> comments and suggestions were very valuable in making the book more complete
> and more useful.
>
> - Ralph Hempel, who accepted the offer to perform the technical edit of the
> book. Ralph's contributions to Mindstorms robotics are impressive, and range
> from mechanical solutions to extreme programming. His involvement proved to
> be even more significant that we had even imagined.
>
> We'll be glad to reply to any question about the book.
>
> Best regards
> Mario Ferrari
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