Tech Bitch

When Fay Rhodes, co-author of The LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Idea Book and contributor to The NXT STEP blog, found that most NXT enthusiasts were interested in creating big, bad robots, she decided to change things.

“Everything seemed oriented toward adult techno-geeks and competition,” she said. “It seemed that little was being offered for parents and children who just wanted to have fun building robots. I saw the NXT as a great way to educate children about machines.” The time of the machines has come…

Her answer came in the form of her new book, The LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Zoo! (No Starch Press, $24.95), which shows fans how to build animal-like robots. In preparing the models for the book, Rhodes said she observed animal movements and experimented with ways to recreate them with the NXT. The results are cool: Ribbit the frog and Bunny the rabbit, both featured in the book, are the first hopping NXT robots ever created!

Many of the models included in the NXT kit can be difficult for beginners to build, but the instructions for the Zoo models are simple and clear; they assume no previous experience. The book offers a simple introduction to the NXT kit, teaches readers how to program with the NXT-G language (including how to make miniprograms called My Blocks), and shows how to build and program nine robots that act like their real animal cousins.