Product:
The Unofficial Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS Robots |
Company:
O'Reilly & Assoc. |
| Web: www.oreilly.com |
Phone: 800-998-9938 |
| Platform: Your lap |
SRP: US$25
Street Price: same |
Cred Rating:  | Special Award: |
Product:
Dave Baum's Definitive Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS |
Company:
Apress |
| Web:www.apress.com |
Phone: 510-595-3110 |
| Platform: Mac/PC |
SRP: US$25
Street Price: same |
Cred Rating:  | Special Award: |
You know a toy is no longer a toy when O'Reilly & Associates (the computer book publisher beloved by deep geeks everywhere) writes a book about it. Such is the case with The Unofficial Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS Robots by Jonathan B. Knudsen.
The MINDSTORMS Robotics Invention System (RIS) is a line of computerized LEGO sets that have taken the geek world by storm. Everyone from kids to adult hobbyists to computer scientists and robot developers have elevated the toy building sets far beyond what The LEGO Group ever imagined. A LEGO represented told Street Tech (we've always wanted to say that), they only expected maybe ten percent of the market to be adults who'd want to tinker with the system. They were overwhelmed with the popularity of the sets among adult hobbyists and serious researchers. The LEGO representative also told Street Tech what percentage of the sales were adult, but Street Tech forgets.
The Unofficial Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS Robots provides a basic introduction to robots in general, LEGO robots in particular and includes numerous hands-on robot projects. This is definitely not a book for young children, but teens, school science and tech classes and serious hobbyists will get a lot out of it. The book not only covers the official LEGO products, but also the numerous software and hardware innovations that enthusiasts trade via the Internet. While the book is useful for those not immersed in the active MINDSTORMS online community, hardcore robot makers may find lots of this material old news.
One unfortunate drawback to Knudsen's book is the dark, poorly laid out photographs. Some of the robot projects are rather sophisticated, and trying to follow the instructions here can be a chore. One of its strengths over David Baum's book (reviewed below) is that it covers more programming languages (pbFORTH, LegOS, Spirit.ocx) and it has a welcome introductory chapter on hardware hacking your own sensors.
A more popular book among the RIS faithful is Dave Baum's Definitive Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS (Apress). Baum is the creator of NQC (Not Quite C), the MINDSTORMS programming language preferred by serious bot builders. Besides the 14 robot projects in the book, it contains an excellent guide to NQC and a CD-ROM that includes the program.
This Apress book looks like the type of book you'd expect from O'Reilly. It's handsome, beautifully laid out and full of useful information and ideas. The 3D graphics are stunning. Baum and artist Rodd Zurcher rendered individual LEGO pieces and then assembled them into the various projects. The result is a very clean and easy-to-interpret guide. Unfortunately, because the graphics are still in black and white, it is sometimes hard to figure out some of the pieces being used. This is really a minor quibble though compared to the Knudsen book. Since this book comes with a CD-ROM, it would have been nice to have included color renderings of the projects for reference.
Since Baum is the architect of NQC, the book spends most of its time, on the software side, talking about this program. He does an excellent job of explaining the program in such a way that even a programming novice like myself can figure out how NQC works. All of the code used in the book is also on the CD, and there's a handy NQC Quick Reference in the back.
In terms of projects, both books have their strengths. Between the two of them, you end up learning dozens of construction techniques, basic bot designs and work-arounds so you can venture off into your own projects. If you can only afford one MINDSTORMS book, it should be Baum's, but if you're a dedicated bot builder, you'll definitely want both.
- Gareth Branwyn [1/31/00]
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