Two excellent robotics books

I have received many offers to help our team, some from unexpected places. A few months ago, I received two books on robotics to evaluate: Definitive Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS, by Dave Baum, and ROBOT BUILDING For Beginners, by David Cook, both published by Apress.

The Definitive Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS goes into great detail about how to plan and build a robot from LEGOs. It covers the inner workings of the RCX, LEGO building principles, and concludes with an extensive library of robot projects than can be built to demonstrate various robotic principles. Considerable attention is given to the construction details, and even the experienced LEGO robot builder will find much that he can learn from this book. Finally, the examples include assembly details, theory of operation, and specific programming examples in NQC, a C-like language invented by the author. While our team used RoboLab (due to U.S. FIRST competition regulations) the examples were helpful and would be useful to anyone desiring to understand programming princples with MindStorms. Overall, an excellent book. Recommended.

Robot Building is a wonderful book for the do-it-yourself robotics enthusiast on a budget. It covers principles of robotics, electronics, mechanics as well has how to use various tools and assembly techniques. The book covers a variety of concepts and technologies and then shows the reader how to assemble a home-build line-following robot. An informative read. Recommended for the amateur inventor.

Discussion for this entry is now closed.