Reader reviews

This page will tell you what other readers think about this book. Each of these reviews were originally posted to Amazon.com, which is also where you can read more reviews.

Quote of the minute

"I think any prospective NXT 2.0 set purchaser would do very well in purchasing the book together with the set. Or perhaps Lego should bundle the book with the set!"

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Take the NXT Step

I (a hardware/software developer and radio ham for some 30 years) bought LEGO Mindstorms for my now eight-year-old son last Christmas. Being a LEGO nut since he was old enough not to swallow the pieces, he's had great fun with Mindstorms since then.

But after you've built the models detailed in the Mindstorms kit, where do you go next? The Mindstorms online help is pretty good, but tiresome to read on the screen, and not the best medium for a youngster. The Alpha Rex etc. are impressive but it's hard for a child to try to make his own models of a similar complexity on the basis of the models in the Mindstorms kit. There is a huge gap between copying ready-made models and learning to create real robots from scratch, and Laurens Valk's book fills that gap perfectly.

As "the missing manual", this book thoroughly explains the NXT hardware and NXT-G software, in enough technical detail to satisfy a seasoned programmer like me, but without overloading someone who is completely new to the technology. That is no mean feat!

The building instructions are of a similar quality to those provided in the all-too-slim Mindstorms manual, and my son was able to follow them and the programming instructions with only minimal guidance from me (usually because we hadn't yet read the accompanying text! :-)

Now, there are several ways to approach this book. To get started quickly, you or your child genius can simply follow the detailed building and programming instructions to create any of the eight robots detailed in the book. My son had almost no trouble doing this: in fact, he first went after the more complex models like the Strider featured on the cover, followed by the very impressive Chimney Climber. If, like us, you're new to the LEGO Technic and Mindstorms systems, you'll be surprised how they can be made to do such remarkable things.

The program instructions feature a simplified overview - essentially a flow diagram - that lets you follow the basic structure of the program and learn about loops, "if-then-else" blocks, etc. Your young robotics engineer can learn about the how-and-why of the programs, and gradually improvise to deepen his/her understanding of what the NXT controller is "thinking", and then devise clever ways to change it.

Then there are the challenges, or "discoveries" to use Laurens' word: 87 of them in all. Once we have settled down to reading the book together start-to-finish (give us a chance, we've only had this book for a week!), the discoveries will provide many new paths to explore and consolidate our understanding of robotic systems.

I would have expected to pay three times what Amazon is charging for this book, based on similar books aimed at software developers. At under $20, it is excellent value for money and an essential "NXT" step on any robot designer's path of discovery. Buy it!

--- Reviewed by Richard P. Murnane

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Great Book

I bought the 2.0 lego kit and two books for my son, age 10. I glanced at the other book a couple weeks ago and this one just arrived a couple days ago in the mail. When we opened his lego kit for his birthday, this was the closest book so I started with it. We read the first pages together and stopped for bed at the middle of constructing the first project. The introduction is enough to convince me the order and presentation are well thought out. The author is just 18 or 19 and started with lego mindstorms when he was 13. This book took a lot of planning and thought and being still a young adult, he has the time. This is not just a book of collections of robots and projects, but more like a workbook meant to be done in the order presented. Each new project introducing more complex programming. The other books may have that too, but this book has all the polish I need for now so I'll get to those when we're done with this. Nice work author.

--- Reviewed by Johnnytech

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The best companion book to NXT 2.0 !

My son (11) and I have just received the book, so this is a "first impressions" review. We went right ahead and built "The Snatcher" which is a beautiful robot and also teaches how to perform two actions with a one motor.

Appearance: browsing through the book I was very pleased by its overall graphic quality, which is probably the best of all the NXT books we own. The graphics are grayscale, nevertheless they are outstanding, both in layout, scale and resolution. No more magnifying glass required to build the models! The resulting building instructions are very similar and follow the same conventions as real Lego building instructions. In fact, if they were published in color, I could not tell the difference from original Lego instructions, as they come in any Lego original set. The programming is explained block-by-block, also taking advantage of the print quality, as do the diagrams and of course the text.

Content: I wished we had this book when we started building NXT robots with my son a couple of years ago. It starts from the very basic and progresses to the more advanced topics. It engages the reader to go beyond the instructions of the models with "discoveries". This is a great learning method.

Conclusion: This book will greatly enhance the experience of any NXT 2.0 buyer. It goes way beyond the models that come "bundled" with the set. It will keep youngsters glued to the set, learning and having fun. I think any prospective NXT 2.0 set purchaser would do very well in purchasing the book together with the set. Or perhaps Lego should bundle the book with the set!

When we build more models of the book, I will review it further.

--- Reviewed by Enrique Mordetzki