MINDSTORMS Education NXT

LEGO Education’s 2007 Robotics catalog is out, and there are some new products available that you might not have heard about yet.

LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT: The Mayan Adventure, by Jim Kelly, uses a story based around an archeological exploration of a Mayan ruin to frame some interesting and challenging robotics projects. The book presents the challenges, discusses building techniques, offers a design journal, and even provides programming instructions. Jim also blogs at The NXT Step, a great spot on the web for lots of independent NXT resources.

Physics by Design, Edition II, by Barbara Bratzel, uses the engineering principles to teach physics and physical science using LEGO Education robot sets. The book includes activities that use both ROBOLAB 2.9 and NXT, as well as both the NXT- and RCX-based sets. This makes it an ideal addition to a classroom is slowly transitioning from the RCX-based sets to the LEGO MINDTORMS Education NXT sets. To learn more about Barbara, read about how she integrates engineering into her classroom, or take a look at her article at LEGOengineering.com about transitioning from RCX-based sets to NXT-based sets in her classroom.

Maximum LEGO NXT: Building Robots with Java Brains, by Brian Bagnall, shows how to use Java, a very popular programming language, to program and control robots built using the LEGO MINDTORMS Education NXT sets. The book includes JAVA nstallation and programming how-tos, project building instructions, integrating Bluetooth, and lots more. Brian also has a website, http://www.mts.net/~kbagnall/mindstorms/, where you can learn more about some of his projects