Slashdot Mirror

vossman77 writes: 'According to the Chicago Tribune, "Lego will produce a limited-edition box set called Research Institute, featuring three female scientists in the act of learning more about our world and beyond." The concept received 10,000 supporters on the LEGO ideas site. Creator Ellen Kooijman writes in a blog post, "As a female scientist I had noticed two things about the available Lego sets: a skewed male/female minifigure ratio and a rather stereotypical representation of the available female figures. It seemed logical that I would suggest a small set of female mini-figures in interesting professions to make our Lego city communities more diverse." LEGO says, "The final design, pricing and availability are still being worked out, but it's on track to be released August 2014."'

The MOSS modular robot system is sort of like LEGO Mindstorms, in that you assemble small blocks to make custom robots and other items. But it has some interesting tricks of its own, as product demonstrator John Moyes shows Timothy Lord at CES 2014. The MOSS kits include lots of little metal balls, so they carry a warning that says MOSS kits are suitable for ages 8 and up, while the company's older Cubelets product, which doesn't have the little balls, is supposed to be okay for ages 4 and up. There is no upper age limit specified for either product, so you're probably safe if you want to buy (and can *afford* to buy) any of these interesting toys.

Imagine game designer Steve Jackson and a bunch of friends building Lego trains and tracks and scenery, including buildings and other props. Sounds like fun, doesn't it? The group calls itself the Texas Brick Railroad. A lot of members have children, so their meetings tend to be family affairs. Plus, as they're doing here, they often display their train sets at public events where -- yes -- their trains attract children like crazy. This video shows off both current Lego trains and some of the classic, no-longer-sold Lego trains that members have collected over the years, including the highly-prized monorails. There's a transcript, but face it: This is basically visual material, and worth checking out on a computer or handheld that runs Flash if your normal one doesn't. (We've requested an upgrade from Flash-only video, but don't hold your breath. It might be a good while before we get it.)

First time accepted submitter Barryke writes "Today LEGO announces the new mohawk (NASA's turf) sporting MINDSTORMS EV3 platform (press release). And with details on its features and innards (in Dutch) which in short comes down to: 'Its intelligent brick sports an ARM9-soc running Linux on 64MB RAM and 16MB storage memory, and supports SD cards. There are also four ports, which allow four other 'Bricks' can be connected. The intelligent brick can be reached by WiFi, USB and Bluetooth, and supports control via Android and iOS devices. It comes with 3 servo's, two touch sensors and an IR sensor to track other robots at upto six meters. It also includes 17 build plans, shown in 3D using Adobe Inventor Publisher.'"

An anonymous reader writes "So, it's that wonderful time of year again. Instead of buying the latest, greatest whiz-bang, overpriced fad toy of the year, I thought I might try my hand at corrupting my nieces (ages 12 and 14) in a nerdier direction with some sort of introductory robotics kit. They have no programming experience, and part of my idea is that it would be encouraging for them to see interactions of their code that they write with the real-world by being able to control some actuators and read sensors. The first thing that comes to mind is Lego Mindstorms, but I find them a bit on the pricey side of things. My budget falls between $40 and $100, and the ideal kit would focus more on the software side than on soldering together circuits. I'd be looking for a kit that provides an easy to learn API and development tools that will work with a standard Windows PC. I don't mind spending a few afternoons helping them out with the basics, but I'd like for them to be able to be able to explore on their own after grasping the initial concepts. Has anybody gotten their younger relations into programming through robotics, and what kits might you recommend?"

CmdrStone writes "The Universe is ending in the eyes of LEGO. (Cheap pun, I know.) From the announcement: 'We are very sad to announce that LEGO Universe will be closing on January 31, 2012. This was a very difficult decision to make, but unfortunately LEGO Universe has not been able to attract the number of members needed to keep the game open.' It's too bad; I enjoyed playing this game with my kids. Open sourcing the game would be nice."

DeviceGuru writes "A Lego Mindstorms robotics kit controlled by an HTC Nexus One smartphone successfully untangled a Rubik's Cube puzzle in 12.5 seconds at this weeks ARM technical conference in Silicon Valley. The current 3x3x3 cube-solvers's 15-second average represents a substantial improvement over the 25-second solutions of an earlier version, which was powered by a circa-2006 Nokia N95 smartphone, thanks to a faster (1GHz) CPU, more RAM, and revamped cube-solving algorithms. ARM Engineer David Gilday, who created the robotic cube-solver, claims the current version's algorithms can handle cube complexities up to 100x100x100, assuming he build the mechanics. In terms of racing humans, Gilday says the Lego robotics kits can only manage around 1.5 moves per second, whereas human players can make between 5 and 6 moves per second, amazingly enough." Update: 11/12 03:45 GMT by T : Apologies to creator David Gilday, whose name was earlier misspelled.

bugs2squash writes "Some of the parents of kids at my son's elementary school would like to set up a robotics club for the children. I see that Lego has a new line of robotics bricks called wedo (PDF) and that seems to be the path of least resistance to doing something. But I wanted to ask: What experience do all y'all have of running a robotics club for this age group (5 thru 10 years old) and what factors made it a success (or failure)? Did you use a commercial kit of parts or brew something from scratch? What kind of projects work well with kids this age? I was thinking maybe making robot flowers (yes, I know they'd all rather build robotic sharks with lasers)." (Here's another page about Wedo.)

sharp-bang writes "When I was growing up, my Dad let my brother and I have the run of his wood shop, and kept up a steady stream of Lego kits, Estes model rockets, chemistry sets, Heathkit projects, and other fun science stuff from the Edmund Scientific catalog, and the rest was history. I'd like to give my kids that kind of experience. If your kids were interested in science, computers, robots, and building stuff, how would you build and outfit a lab/shop for them (and you) to play in?"

An anonymous reader writes "Lego just released its ultimate Millennium Falcon model for pre-order. This item should make any SW fan jump with joy. Some of its features include; over 5,000 pieces, 33" long, 22" wide and 8" tall, and it includes 5 minifigures: Han Solo, Chewbacca, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa."

Slashback tonight brings some clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories including: a victory for evolution in Kansas, the Stardust Program launched, Lego Mindstorms goes live, continued backlash on the new E3, Archimedes gets a webcast, another Dell bursts into flame, and a possible RIAA silver bullet Read on for details.

A Victory for Evolution in Kansas. SatanicPuppy writes "Yesterday, elections in Kansas saw four of six pro-Creationism school board members replaced by pro-Evolution candidates in a one issue election. Interestingly, it didn't go by party lines; at least one of the conservative Republicans who supported Creationism failed to make it past their party primary. Ken Willard and John Bacon are the two remaining pro-Creationism incumbents."

Stardust Program Launched. lee1 writes "Anyone with an internet connection now has the the chance to find microscopic grains of dust from beyond the solar system. The project, called Stardust@home, is patterned on projects like SETI@home. But rather than exploiting idle processor time, it will ask volunteers to search through millions of microscope images on their computer screens, exploiting spare time in general as well as ego: 'People get very competitive,' explains the project director. The first volunteer to spot an actual interstellar dust grain will get to name it and will be listed as a co-author on any resulting research papers. The images come from a NASA project called Stardust, whose primary mission was to collect samples of dust from the tail of Comet Wild 2, but might also have captured some interstellar dust that could reveal the physics of the stars that produced it. To minimize false positives and to ensure that all the grains are found, each participant will go through an online training and testing process before starting their search. They will be scored on how well they distinguish real dust grain impacts from fakes."

Lego Mindstorms goes live. MicroBerto writes "As of August 1, 2006, the next generation of Lego Mindstorms is now available for sale in North America. Mindstorms NXT is a robotics toolset that allows you to build and program robots for various purposes. It combines the power of the Lego technic building system and an all new intuitive software environment powered by National Instruments LabVIEW."

Continued backlash on the new E3. Anonymous Howard writes "Angry Gamer reacts badly to the news of the Electronic Entertainment Expo's demise. They see it as a major blow for small game developers who are having enough of a hard time getting noticed by press and retailers as it is. From the article: 'This is a win only for the EAs, Sonys and IGNs of the world. Everyone else has to fend for themselves.' It seems like the days of smaller developers getting noticed by 'drive by traffic' at E3 are over." Relatedly The Escapist Lounge has an interview with the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences president, Joseph Olin, on what is actually happening to E3. As Joseph Olin responds: 'So it's going to take a couple of months until the world knows what the scope of E3 2007 will be, and how it will be structured. The opportunity to make material changes to improve it shouldn't be snap judgments. The rhetorical question I might pose is: "You know you have a problem. You know you need to make changes. How do you make changes and convey it and announce it, and to whom, and when?" There's never a good time. Whenever you make significant change, there's no way to introduce that change without detractors. The challenge is that without being able to announce the exact implementation of change it leaves that gray area for ignorance to fill the void.'"

Archimedes gets a webcast. jd writes "Some time ago, Slashdot covered the story of the rediscovery of several lost writings of Archimedes by means of X-Ray fluorescence. Well, they're still scanning the book and at 11pm GMT (4pm PDT) on August 4th will be putting on a live webcast as they scan and interpret pages not seen by human eyes for over a thousand years."

Another Dell bursts into flame. starwindsurfer writes "A Dell laptop's battery caught on fire in a company's IT department this week, burning a hole right through the casing. Nearby techs used fire extinguishers to put out the blaze. Employee Henrik took pictures to document the affair and uploaded them to the Toms Hardware message boards. From the writeup: 'The police department showed up. The entire lower floor was allowed to leave early and as we stood there in front of the building we simply couldn't resist... we jokingly called the engineer a terrorist as he was being asked a few questions by the friendly officer.'"

An RIAA silver bullet? Chris Fairman writes "TechDirt is running a story about how the RIAA seems to be dropping cases where the defense includes (or hinges on) an IP address as the means to identify the source of criminal activity. Essentially the defense argues that all an IP address can prove is who was paying for the net access at a particular time. Having a wide open WiFi router on your network seems to be currently the most effective means of getting the RIAA to drop all charges. Essentially the activity originating from one IP, only proves that illegal file sharing behavior is coming from one network, and not necessarily from any one specific computer or user. More importantly, it seems that the legal system is beginning to catch on to more complex technology concepts. Such concepts play a large part in how future legal cases are argued, and contribute ultimately to the foundation of complex technology legal precedents."

ajdlinux writes "LEGO has officially announced that the firmware for the Mindstorms NXT will be open source. They will be releasing several developer kits and the firmware source during August, the kits containing the NXT driver specs, the schematics for the hardware connection and the Bluetooth protocol used by the NXT. The NXT will be only US$250, which is only slightly more expensive than the Mindstorms RIS2 kit. I certainly can't wait. " We had covered the earlier announcement of this kit.

Denver_80203 writes "Just when you thought Lego Mindstorms was grinding its last gear, comes the announcement of Lego Mindstorms NXT Robotics Toolset, with sleek servo motors, an ultrasonic sensor which allows robots to 'see' by responding to movement, a sound sensor which enables robots to react to sound commands (including sound pattern and tone recognition) improved touch and light sensors, and a and a programmable brick with at least 7 or 8 RJ11 type jacks. Robot fun! Out in August 2006, and in true Lego style will cost $249." Wired has a preview of the cover story about the new kit on their site.

Denver_80203 writes "Just when you thought Lego Mindstorms was grinding its last gear, comes the announcement of Lego Mindstorms NXT Robotics Toolset, with sleek servo motors, an ultrasonic sensor which allows robots to 'see' by responding to movement, a sound sensor which enables robots to react to sound commands (including sound pattern and tone recognition) improved touch and light sensors, and a and a programmable brick with at least 7 or 8 RJ11 type jacks. Robot fun! Out in August 2006, and in true Lego style will cost $249." Wired has a preview of the cover story about the new kit on their site.

Denver_80203 writes "Just when you thought Lego Mindstorms was grinding its last gear, comes the announcement of Lego Mindstorms NXT Robotics Toolset, with sleek servo motors, an ultrasonic sensor which allows robots to 'see' by responding to movement, a sound sensor which enables robots to react to sound commands (including sound pattern and tone recognition) improved touch and light sensors, and a and a programmable brick with at least 7 or 8 RJ11 type jacks. Robot fun! Out in August 2006, and in true Lego style will cost $249." Wired has a preview of the cover story about the new kit on their site.

fdiskne1 writes "We've all heard about big companies suing their customers for hacking a product they purchased. It's about time we hear about a company that welcomes it. One of the most geek-friendly toys has just gotten geek-friendlier. CNet News.com has a story about how the Lego company is cheering the fact that people are hacking their public design program to better fit their customers' needs. Lego has a free program (available for Windows and Mac) that allows a person to put in their own 3D design and the program will tell the customer which Lego 'palettes' they need to order to complete the design. The problem with it was that the palettes each contained a number of bags of different shape and color Lego blocks. If someone needed only one block out of a particular palette, they would end up with many bags of bricks they didn't need. The hack involved someone taking an inventory of how many bricks are included in each bag. The program would then tell the customer how many BAGS of each to order, greatly reducing the number of bricks the customer would have ended up not using in the project. I can think of many companies that wouldn't think of doing such a thing. In fact, I can think of many companies that would intentionally use the flaw in their program to make the customer buy even more."

Neuropol writes "CNN tells us our favorite locking building block company, LEGO, is hosting a Junior Robotics Competition in Atlanta, GA this weekend. The event expects to pit hundreds of grade schoolers ages 9-14 against each other in a 9 task Olympic Style face-off with each teams robot. Twelve year old Taylor offers 'NASA works with a lot of robots and when you build a robot you need to know what goes in it,' says Taylor. 'And when you're working with FIRST LEGO you have to figure that out -- how to set stuff where it needs to go.' While this is too young for most of us to participate in, it's great to see the attention being focused on such a potentially great generation of robotics developers."

Cubricon writes "One Christmas in the early 90's, my parents ordered a SpaceWarp Set 30 coaster set from a JC Penny's catalog. It was one of the most amazing toys I have ever had, Legos included. A few years later, after many of the pieces were broken or lost, I looked to buy a new set. I was dissapointed to find out that Bandai stopped making the toy. Even though you can find 'new' sets on eBay they cost double or triple the original prices. The good news is that Tanomi is remaking the toy. Presenting... SpaceWarp 5000. Currently, the toy is only available in Japan, hopefully we'll get it here soon."

_xeno_ writes "LEGO, everyone's favorite plastic building block company, is creating a Star Wars video game. Yes, that's right. A video game based on the LEGO Star Wars sets, which are of course based on Star Wars. GameSpot has a preview of the game. It covers the three prequel movies, allowing you to play through levels containing LEGO friends and allies. At first you can only play with characters appropriate for the level, but you can unlock other characters to swap in as you play through the game. Because the world is based on LEGO blocks, there are puzzles that involve the creation of LEGO structures to bridge gaps. It's scheduled for an April release, just before "Revenge of the Sith" opens." I guess this would be an...ahem...puzzle game.

_xeno_ writes "LEGO, everyone's favorite plastic building block company, is creating a Star Wars video game. Yes, that's right. A video game based on the LEGO Star Wars sets, which are of course based on Star Wars. GameSpot has a preview of the game. It covers the three prequel movies, allowing you to play through levels containing LEGO friends and allies. At first you can only play with characters appropriate for the level, but you can unlock other characters to swap in as you play through the game. Because the world is based on LEGO blocks, there are puzzles that involve the creation of LEGO structures to bridge gaps. It's scheduled for an April release, just before "Revenge of the Sith" opens." I guess this would be an...ahem...puzzle game.

_xeno_ writes "LEGO, everyone's favorite plastic building block company, is creating a Star Wars video game. Yes, that's right. A video game based on the LEGO Star Wars sets, which are of course based on Star Wars. GameSpot has a preview of the game. It covers the three prequel movies, allowing you to play through levels containing LEGO friends and allies. At first you can only play with characters appropriate for the level, but you can unlock other characters to swap in as you play through the game. Because the world is based on LEGO blocks, there are puzzles that involve the creation of LEGO structures to bridge gaps. It's scheduled for an April release, just before "Revenge of the Sith" opens." I guess this would be an...ahem...puzzle game.

troop23 writes "A blog posting by Benjamin J. J. Voigt says this "The University of Potsdam has a project to develop a .NET VM for the Lego Mindstorms system. Lego Mindstorms just got a higher priority on my shopping list!" While the thought of using .Net to program Lego Mindstorms may not be palatable, having a mainstream dev environment sure is." Perhaps Mono would work just as well.

mindless4210 writes "Lego announced today the successful deployment of a full-scale child-tracking system within Legoland Billund in Europe. The tracking system, deployed by Bluesoft, Inc and KidSpotter, allows park visitors keep track of their children using one of the world's largest Wi-Fi tracking networks. The children must wear a wrist band with a Wi-Fi tag on it, and if they become separated, parents simply send a text message from their mobile phone, and receive an automated response giving them the accurate location of their child."

mindless4210 writes "Lego announced today the successful deployment of a full-scale child-tracking system within Legoland Billund in Europe. The tracking system, deployed by Bluesoft, Inc and KidSpotter, allows park visitors keep track of their children using one of the world's largest Wi-Fi tracking networks. The children must wear a wrist band with a Wi-Fi tag on it, and if they become separated, parents simply send a text message from their mobile phone, and receive an automated response giving them the accurate location of their child."

mindless4210 writes "Lego announced today the successful deployment of a full-scale child-tracking system within Legoland Billund in Europe. The tracking system, deployed by Bluesoft, Inc and KidSpotter, allows park visitors keep track of their children using one of the world's largest Wi-Fi tracking networks. The children must wear a wrist band with a Wi-Fi tag on it, and if they become separated, parents simply send a text message from their mobile phone, and receive an automated response giving them the accurate location of their child."

thufir writes "LEGO has released a press release, where they dismiss the rumour that MINDSTORMS is being taken out of production. For some reason the changes in product policy lead to the misunderstanding that they would totally drop the product. 'Hearsay has it that a product range like LEGO MINDSTORMS is no longer in focus. This is not true. On the contrary, MINDSTORMS, CLIKITS and BIONICLE are all good examples of products the company wants to stake on.'" See our previous stories, Lego to Stop Producing Mindstorms and Lego Goes Back to the Basics.

aheath writes "Today's Boston Globe has an interesting article on the revived popularity of the Rubik's Cube. The article mentions that Winning Moves Games 'hopes to capitalize on the renaissance of the original Rubik's Cube in the next several months by rereleasing a version of the supersize 'Rubik's Revenge,' a 4-by-4 cube with 16 squares per side.' You can compare your best Rubik's Cube solution speed to the world champion's record. If the manual solution method doesn't appeal to you, you can always use the Lego Robotics automated method." I remember having a cube that had letters on each sticker instead of colors, so that the solved product spelled words across each face. That thing got me through a lot of childhood car rides.

watashiwananashidesu asks: "I am a teenager with no siblings and a a good number of little cousins. Being something of a nerd, I'm incredibly popular with these cousins, especially the ones who are 8-11. Recently, when my first cousin (female, 8) was over, I began a collection of links that she might enjoy--sites that were appropriate and fun. Now that the Cold/Flu season is over, I can expect more visits from my first, second, and third cousins, and I'm left with a dismally small collection of links (eight, to be specific) for them to peruse. Also, the few I have are unsatisfactory; they're mainly corporate sites like Barbie.com and Lego.com with a few non-corporate games mixed in. None of the sites have any educational value, least of all about the things that I really want to expose them to--science, math, literature, and computers. In fact, I especially need sites that will teach them about computers, so that they'll be able to better keep in touch with me, when we're all older. What are some good sites I can bookmark for my cousins that are: educational, appropriate for children aged 5-11, (mainly three boys and two girls), fun, not a security threat, non-corporate (though this last one is optional) Also, how can I make my friends/protégé(e)s/cousins make the best of what few links I have or manage to find?"

Cutriss writes "CNN's usually dry and uninspired reporting was interrupted today by this interesting and rather well-informed piece by Eric Hellweg from the Technical Investor section. It compares and contrasts efforts from various companies in squashing/supporting the hobbyist community. It's rather well-timed, considering recent events."

In celebration of the release of AotC, here are a bunch of random SW stories that have fluttered through our bin: Tim Drage has made a Lego Star Wars movie, POds sent us a fan film Fan Film (quicktime. Bah). Here is a comic to share and enjoy. iamchaos noted that the next Matrix Trailer will be showing with Clones. nellardo sent in a fine tribute to darth maul. Anyone want a Star Wars Axe? Zack sent us a great collection of SW Characters you won't see as much as you might want to. wiredog sent us some spoilers, the Skywalker family tree and how Anakin becomes Vader. peter_gzowski sent in an essay by Ebert where he gives it 2 of 4 stars, and discusses the digital filming. Finally ant sent us a bizarre tale of some guys who got the brilliant idea to build a life-size Millenium Falcon. So there it is folks. I have tickets for a 12:01 showing in Ann Arbor and I'll be getting in line in just a few short hours.

AaronW writes "According to this story at EE Times IBM is developing a 32TB storage system built around blocks that can be stacked like Lego bricks. Apparently they will be connected in a 3x3x3 mesh using capacitive coupling and will be water cooled."

RoscoHead writes: "S'pose you've already seen this over at Fast Company - a follow-up to their previous article by Charles Fishman. The follow-up includes comments from three different "users" of Lego - including Hemos, alias Jeff Bates, Slashdot's esteemed Lego guru..."

slashdoter writes: "What could be better than combining Lego and Monty Python and the search for the holy grail? Well recording it and putting it online of course. Follow the link and smile." Quicktime or Windows Media. Scary. Needs to be much longer. :)

Packetknife writes: "Business 2.0 has an article on Lego and the development and business issues surrounding the Mindstorms product line. The article concentrates on intellectual property issues and the role of hackers in the development of Mindstorms. The hook to the OSS movement is obvious in the article." Interesting piece about Lego trying not to bite the hand that feeds it, even though the temptation is strong.

Credit goes to memepool for bringing you word of Lego robot that solves Rubik's Cubes. This is one of the most jaw-dropping things I've ever seen. Dedication is defined as rebuilding "left and right grabbers six times (and the bottom grabber four times) trying elastic bands, Technic shocks, and pneumatics" in order to grasp that little cube.

CodingFrenzy writes: "If you're over 18 and living in Germany, Switzerland or Austria (thats all in Europe) you can submit your best Mindstorm based Robot to a competition to fly to the ISS (this link in German). Choose any design you want: cleaning windows, space-ballet, etc. Include a gravity generator and you might even be able to use those wheels. Pack it into fur and give them a space-pet. What the heck, there's enough junk in space already..." If you win, let us know, we'll send you a t-shirt. :)

zardor writes: "According to a spacehab news release, the LEGO company shipped a few bricks up to the station for the cosmonauts to play with. (US astronauts were probably not allowed to play since they can't "engage in commercial activities"). From the news release: "The LEGO Company flew an experiment designed to help students learn about weight and mass. Space Media's STARS Academy global education program developed this experiment, and the Challenger Center for Space Science Education contributed educational materials for it. In this first-ever toy-based experiment on the ISS, cosmonauts attached a LEGO Life on Mars Red Planet Protector toy set to a mass measurement device and determined the oscillation frequency of the toy in the device in order to gauge its mass in space. Cosmonauts videotaped the experiment for educational uses. The LEGO payload also included a promotional banner, which cosmonauts unfurled and photographed in space, and 300 toy ``alien'' figures. Most of the figures will be awarded to winners of the LEGO ``Life on Mars Survival Challenge National Building Contest'' for children aged 5-12. Its a shame they flew the bricks down, otherwise they could have used them to repair that broken CanadaArm 2."

cybercuzco writes: "Lego has just released a new mindstorms add-on that lets you 'create a fully operational Imperial AT-AT walker.' Pictures and specs are available here. The price is rumored to be $99, so start saving your nickels."

cybercuzco writes: "Lego has just released a new mindstorms add-on that lets you 'create a fully operational Imperial AT-AT walker.' Pictures and specs are available here. The price is rumored to be $99, so start saving your nickels."

jagger writes: "How often have you heard someone at a party say, 'Oh, change the music, nobody is dancing to this song!' Well, that problem is now solved with this lego dj that detects whether the dance floor is hopping or not and also responds to hand motions from people in front of its camera."

mattdm wrote in to tell us that Lego has instituted bulk ordering of parts. The selection is somewhat limited, but they have most of the parts you would want to build your fullsize Lego house. And with five colors to choose from, you should be all set! Now the question is, with this quantity of Legos available, what do people think the coolest thing to build would be?

Cy Guy writes "Lego has announced that they are buying Paul Allen's Zowie Intertainment. Zowie's toys let you animate your own cartoons by tracking the movement of character pieces on a play set connected to your PC. Lego plans to integrate the Zowie technology into its popular Mindstorms products. No word as to whether Allen was selling his toys because of the sudden devaluation of his MS stock. "

BHS_Turf writes "Check out Lego's version of CAD , and give your kid everything you never had (like unlimited Lego)... or you may find that it's something cool for you to do in your spare time! "

Quite a number of you out there are into Lego Mindstorms, as evidenced by the number of book reviews that have been sent my way. Below are a couple of reviews, one from Kurt DeMaagd and the other from Will Ware. Click below to get their take on the O'Reilly book The Unofficial Guide to Lego Mindstorms Robots. The Unofficial Guide to Lego Mindstorms Robots author Jonathan B. Knudsen pages 247 publisher O'Reilly & Associates rating 9/10 reviewer Will Ware & Kurt DeMaagd ISBN 1-56592-692-7 summary Get the most out of your Lego Mindstorms The Unofficial Guide to Lego Mindstorms Robots Review by Will Ware

Last year, Lego released their Mindstorms Robotics Invention System. Using this, children and adults can build simple robots whose behavior can be programmed. The Mindstorms system is a major contender for Coolest Toy on the Planet.

The system contains a RCX programmable brick containing an H8/300 microcontroller, some pushbuttons, a little LCD display, and connectors for motors and sensors (light and physical contact). The user writes a program using a graphical programming language on his Windows box, and downloads it to the RCX via infrared.

Not surprisingly, substantial reverse engineering (1, 2) has been done by hobbyists, and it is possible to develop Mindstorms programs on a Linux box and to download the RCX brick from Linux.

Now O'Reilly has joined the Mindstorms fray, with a book full of fun and useful information about how to build and program Mindstorms robots. The book describes four different robots: Hank is a bumper car robot, Trusty uses light sensors to follow a line along the floor, Minerva has a movable arm, and two identical robots play a game called RoboTag. Along the way, the author discusses the physics and mechanics of robots, programming issues, and the available development environments for Mindstorms.

What's Good? There are detailed building instructions for each of the robots, showing photos at various stages of construction. The designs are simple and appear mechanically sound. There are discussion of the physics and mechanics of tank treads, steering, gears, and other things.

The book's chapters sequentially step through several different software development environments. The first chapter starts with the Windows-based RIS environment that comes on the Mindstorms CDROM. Later chapters give programming examples for NQC (Not Quite C), pbFORTH, Visual Basic, and the legOS operating system, which uses an EGCS cross-compiler to target the H8/300. There are more development platforms available, but these give a good sense of what's possible in Mindstorms programming.

The book has dozens of useful URLs, for both official Mindstorm sites and unofficial hobbyist sites. I particularly liked the fact that the author was aware of some of the recent research in robotics. For instance there is some discussion of Rodney Brooks' subsumption architecture, which is used for the RoboTag robots.

Later chapters of the book often expand on designs from earlier chapters, building more sophistocated robots in an accessible, incremental fashion. For the more adventurous hobbyist, the final chapter talks about building your own sensors and actuators, and how to connect them to the RCX.

What's Bad? Some of the photos are too dark and lack contrast. It would also have been nice if the photography had been in color, but black-and-white photos kept the book more affordable.

This book is for the casual weekend robot-building tinkerer, and it never promised to discuss real-time embedded issues in depth. Still, a few topics might have merited at least brief mention. Systems with real-time multitasking must frequently arrange for synchronization and communication between tasks, using mutexes and mailboxes and the like, which brings the possibility of deadlocked processes. Another danger is that an aggressively efficient compiler will sometimes optimize away reads and writes to hardware registers. The fix is to declare such registers with the volatile keyword.

Review by Kurt DeMaagd

While Lego Mindstorms were officially released for a teenage crowd, they have become popular with a wide variety of technically competent people in many age groups. This widespread fascination has opened up a whole new world of opportunities for using Mindstorms. At the same time, the documentation and tutorial included with the Lego kits provide very little information about how to get the most out of the sets. This book fills the void by providing several start-to-finish robot designs, software to run them, and a wealth of other tips and tricks.

After a brief introduction to robotics and how Legos fit in, the author discusses the basics of using Mindstorms to create them. Both chapters present a problem, provide step by step building instructions, provide the necessary information to program the solution, and finally go into greater detail about the Lego features used to solve the particular problem.

While the chapters did an excellent job of presenting this information in general, they fell victim to a problem that would plague the entire book: some of the building diagrams were nigh unto unreadable. Attempting to build a robot based on fuzzy black and white photographs can be quite a chore. Fortunately, none of the robots were so complex that they robots were completely unbuildable.

The first few chapters presented robots programmed with the default RIS programming environment. In chapter four and following, he shows how to program using languages such as Not Quite C, Forth, Sprit.ocx for Visual Basic--or optionally Visual C++ or another ActiveX-aware language--and legOS. Since much of these sections was documenting API's, it was certainly not the most exciting read, but it does provide concise, easily to reference documentation.

Not Quite C, as the name implies, is a C-like language that can be used to program Mindstorms robots. It overcomes many of the limitations of the default RIS programming environment, most notably the lack of variables. One of its biggest advantages is that it does not require the user to install a new version of the firmware on their RCX unit. In general, it provides an excellent balance between power and usability.

The remaining three means of programming presented in the book are fairly mediocre options. PbForth requires the user to download a new firmware version, and the language itself is very archaic in modern software development terms. Using Sprit.ocx is a viable option for people used to programming in Visual Basic or Visual C++, but the control structures are very clunky and non-intuitive. legOS, while it is probably the most powerful option, takes a significant amount of time to set up and develop applications with.

Two of the projects referenced while discussing the various programming languages were particularly interesting, both of which outlined infrared communication. The first program creates a simple remote control for controlling a robot via the IR port on the RCX. The other example, perhaps the most interesting in the book, was creating two robots who played tag with each other. These two robots also communicated with each other via their IR ports.

The last chapter, targetted toward the hard core Mindstorms users outlined how to create additional sensors for Mindstorms. It sketched out such possibilities as a passive light sensor, a Hall effect sensor (magnetic fields), and a touch multiplexor (allowing you to have more touch sensors than normally allowed on the RCS unit).

In general, the book provides a vast array building and programming tips, tricks, and methods. He gives basic information for the person who is just starting, and introduces the advanced user to the vast network of people and product that have made Mindstorms far more than a child's toy.

Purchase this book at fatbrain.

Table of Contents

• Preface

• 1. Welcome to MINDSTORMS
• What is a Robot?
• Mobile Robots
• What is MINDSTORMS?
• What Now?
• Online Resources

• 2. Hank, the Bumper Tank
• About the Building Instructions
• Building Instructions
• A Simple Program
• Wheels
• Bumpers and Feelers
• Gears
• Multitasking
• Online Resources

• 3. Trusty, a Line Follower
• Building Instructions
• Some Tricky Programming
• The Light Sensor
• Idler Wheels
• Using Two Light Sensors
• Online Resources

• 4. Not Quite C
• A Quick Start
• RCX Software Architecture
• NQC Overview
• Trusty Revisited
• Online Resources

• 5. Minverva, a Robot with an Arms
• Building Instructions
• Programming
• Directional Transmission
• Pulleys
• Mechanical Design
• Two Sensors, One Input
• Where am I?
• Online Resources

• 6. PbFORTH
• Replacement Firmware
• pbForth Overview
• About Forth
• pbFORTH Words
• An Expensive Thermometer
• Minerva Revisited
• Debugging
• Online Resources

• 7. A Remote Control for Minerva
• Two Heads are Better Than One
• The Allure of Telerobotics
• Building Instructions
• Programming the Remote Control
• Programming Minerva
• Online Resources

• 8. Using Sprit.ocx with Visual Basic
• You May Already Have Visual Basic
• About Spirit.ocx
• Calling Spirit.ocx
• Immediate and Delayed Gratification
• Programs, Tasks, and Subroutines
• Tips
• Retrieveing the Datalog
• Online Resources

• 9. RoboTag, a Game for Two Robots
• Building Instructions
• Subsumption Architecture
• Online Resources

• 10. LegOS
• About legOS
• Development Tools
• Hello, legOS
• Function Reference
• New Brains for Hank
• Development Tips
• Online Resources

• 11. Make Your Own Sensors
• Mounting
• Passive Sensors
• Powered Sensors
• Touch Multiplexer
• Other Neat Ideas
• What About Actuators?
• Online Resources

• A. Finding Parts and Programming Environments

• B. A pbFORTH Downloader

• C. Future Directions

• Index

Robert Flemming wrote in to say that KDE 1.1pre2 is out. I also noticed that GNOME has 0.99.3 RPMs available now if you're into that. LoCoPuff sent us a link to a CNN article about theWindows Refund that mentions Slashdot and quotes me (cough cough). Nate wrote in to say "Brian Eno's "Oblique Strategies" meet the Everything 2 code in The Oblique Strategies Garden. Indeterminacy=fun. " Robert Dale sent us a parody of Iggy Pop's Lust for Life called Lust For Linux (surprise) For todays Star Wars bits, Alan Shutko sent us a link to pictures of Official Star Wars Legos. And the todays flashback comes from The_Black_Macrame who sent a link to the complete errata list from the original Star Wars. It's an oldie, but a goodie. hangman got bored and decided to trash a DEC 2100 and post pictures. Check it out if you're into computer mutilation. An anonymous reader sent us a link to one image you don't want to see on an ATM. And lastly, jhack sent us a link to a nice little page on painting your mac black if you happen to think that blue color is a bit excessive. The final results are pretty sharp. Now stop reading quickies and go compile your 2.2 kernel.

Matthew Miller sent us this link where you can read about one of the cooler things to happen to Lego's recently. Not only are they robotic, computer controlled, toys, but next year they will be based on Star Wars. I can't believe that I still have another year to wait until the first prequel.