The Unofficial LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Inventor's Guide Paperback – October 29, 2007

These are my first impressions on David Purdue's book, I will follow up later when I finish reading it. So far what I can say is that it differs from other No Starch Press books in many ways. For starters, the quality of the images (in grayscale) is very much improved. I found no difficulty following the building instructions which David managed to keep simple and well commented. I would not say it is as if they were in color, but it is close enough. In other No Starch books I really did have problems in that area, and had it not been for the help and support of the authors themselves and the community, I could not have finished some projects.Secondly this is a highly educative book. It starts from the very basics and goes to some very advanced topics. My son and I regard ourselves as experienced Lego builders, having built dozens of robots. Well, what a surprise we were in for. In the first few pages when David starts to "dissect" and classify every single part of the Mindstorms kit, we were already learning some details it would have been impossible to find out otherwise. This book has a meticulous attention to detail for which the author must be commended. It merits careful reading because you find bits of useful info in every page.I am eager to reach the programming section in which I hope to improve my NXT-G skills considerably.As to the robots themselves, they are in line with the purpose of the book, which is educational. You learn something by building them.I truly recommend this book and especially as a first book if you plan to build Lego Mindstorms robots for quite some time.

I bought this book and 2 others to help my 10 and 6 year old sons understand more about their Mindstorms NXT 1.0 kits. I am extremely happy with the content of this book and the way that the author presents the material. This book is easily readable by a 10 year old and goes a long way in explaining the structural and programming concepts required to use the Mindstorms system.If you are comparing books and need to pick one, I strongly recommend picking this book. The other books are good also, but this one is the best that I have found for beginner/intermediate users.

This book does a good job by starting out with an introduction to LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robotics, introducing to the pieces and letting the users know about the potential of the kit and what to expect.Building the robot essentials are also very well laid out and tell you how to make strong and useable robot designs, Author also has attempted to use high quality drawings which are used to help illustrate its uniquely intuitive layouts, but I feel that it could have been even better if the drawings were in full color for kids to know their pieces and put them together faster by looking at the drawings alone.The chapters in the book are partitioned into four areas, the first three parts comprises the first half of the book. The Parts one through three focuses on an introduction, building and programming. It is actually part four of the book that provides the reader a chance to exercise the knowledge gained in previous chapters with extensive, quality project guides. A total of six different robots namely Zippy-bot, Bumper-bot, Claw-bot, Tag-bot, Guard-bot, Golf-bot with detailed building and programming instructions are presented.And for those who aren't so sure why building a robot is a worthy pastime, Check out my another favorite Author Jim Kelly who offers excellent Adventure based robot design books like LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT: The Mayan Adventure (Technology in Action) and the sequel LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT 2.0: The King's Treasure (Technology in Action)If you have recently purchased a LEGO Mindstorms NXT 2.0 (8547) the book is *must have* to go with the kit, This book definitely has excellent value! - Buy one!

My son LOVES this book! So glad I bought it to encourage his robotic ventures.

This book, while not going into great detail, covers a lot of topics in the NXT world. It starts out going through basic studded and stud-less building techniques, then does an overview of the current programming languages for the NXT and ends with a series of instructions for robots you can build.This book is a must for anyone starting out with the NXT and is a good idea source for those more experienced.

As expected

My son loves this book, too. Again, he has had it for almost 2 years and still loves it. He has sucessfully created several of the robots without trouble. He was 8 yrs old when I bought it and is now 10. He sneaks and reads it under his covers at night as well.

Even though I have been working with the NXT as a teacher since it came out, I learned things about how to better build or program the NXT. Since I teach mostly introductory robotics using the NXT, I explored some additional concepts using this book.If you are new to the NXT, this is for sure a great first book to read. It begins with explainations of the LEGO pieces used in the NXT kit and then explores all of the basic programming blocks.For someone who has used the NXT, but just jumped into it without any previous Mindstorms experience or training, this book will help you fill in the gaps you probably have with the NXT. Some more advanced concepts are also covered for someone wanting to reach a little further in their NXT knowledge.