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As some of you know I've been working on a Lego Mindstorms book for Java
programmers. The official release date is March 15, 2002 so it seems like a
good time to announce it. The intent of this book is to get Java programmers
interested in Lego Mindstorms robotics. The title of the book is "Core Lego
Mindstorms Programming", part of Cay Horstmanns Core series with Prentice
Hall PTR. Originally this was going to be published along with Mario
Ferrari's book but ended up moving over to a different publisher. I'm not
sure what the final page count is yet since it's at the printers but I do
know it's over 500 pages.
Briefly, the following topics are covered in the book:
- an introduction to the Robotics Invention System
- other kits and products in the Mindstorms universe
- a feature overview of leJOS, the Java platform for the RCX brick
- installation instructions for leJOS
- setup instruction for a powerful IDE
- an introduction to Java
- differences between leJOS Java and Sun's Java
- the leJOS API (how to access motors, sensors, and other RCX components)
- an encyclopedia of the 129 unique Robotics Invention System parts
- building common Lego structures
- Behavior Control programming, a technique of programming insect level,
behavior based intelligence
- basic navigation concepts
- navigation using timing techniques
- navigation using rotation sensors
- building a simple proximity detector using only the parts in the kit
- building an accurate distance sensor using electronics
- building a wall follower
- building a compass sensor
- navigating with the compass sensor
- PC to RCX communications using Java Streams
- RCX to RCX communications using Java Streams
- controlling the RCX brick from a PC across the Internet
- setting up a simple server and JSP page to control the RCX (using a Bean)
- an advanced overview of leJOS (Contributed by Jose Solozano)
- memory saving strategies
- using the leJOS JVM to run other languages, such as NetRexx
- porting leJOS to other processors (Contributed by Jose Solozano)
- ordering sensors, kits, and other parts
- utilities available for leJOS
- web resources
I'd like to express my sincere gratitude to the following people:
Jose for providing the technical review of the book
Paul Andrews and Juergen Stuber, who have been leading the leJOS project
since Jose "semi-retired" from the scene
Philippe "Philo" Hurbain and Claude Baumann for helping so much with the
electronics projects
Cay for allowing this book to become part of his Core series of books.
Greg Doench for coordinating the creation of this book
Harold Cabrera and Jeff Gillespie for rendering the instructions for the robots
Finally, enormous thanks to Lego for the product that started it all!
Brian Bagnall
http://www.mts.net/~bbagnall
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Message has 5 Replies:
 | | Re: New Book - Programming Lego Mindstorms with Java
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| Hi all, As some of you also know, there is a companion book to Mario and Giulio Ferrari's book "Building Robots with Lego Mindstorms" coming out at about the same time (not to rain on your announcement Brian ;-) titled "Programming Lego Mindstorms (...) (23 years ago, 10-Mar-02, to lugnet.robotics)
| | | Re: New Book - Core Lego Mindstorms
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| Hi Brian The list of the covered topics makes your book very promising. I'm going to pre-order it right now. Good luck! Mario (...) a (...) programmers (...) Lego (...) Bean) (...) robots (...) (23 years ago, 11-Mar-02, to lugnet.robotics)
| | | Re: New Book - Core Lego Mindstorms
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| In lugnet.announce, Brian Bagnall writes: As some of you know I've been working on a Lego Mindstorms book for Java programmers. The official release date is March 15, 2002 so it seems like a good time to announce it. The intent of this book is to (...) (23 years ago, 15-Mar-02, to lugnet.robotics)
| | | Re: New Book - Core Lego Mindstorms
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| Awesome book, got it, read it cover-to-cover. Well written, good projects, very comprehensive. Kinda took the wind out of my sails, really, knowing somebody else had already done so much! Still I guess if you want to produce a really awesome robot (...) (23 years ago, 16-Apr-02, to lugnet.robotics)
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