Winning Design!: LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Design Patterns for Fun and Competition

Winning Design! LEGO Mindstorms NXT Design Patterns for Fun and Competition is about design that works. It’s about building with LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT for fun, for education, but especially for competition. Author James Trobaugh is an experienced coach and leader in the FIRST LEGO League. In this book, he shares his hard-won knowledge about design principles and techniques that contribute to success in robotics competitions.

Winning Design! unlocks the secrets of reliable design using LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT. You’ll learn proven design patterns that you can employ for common tasks such as turning, pushing, and pulling. You’ll reduce and compensate for variation in performance from battery charge levels and motor calibration differences. You’ll produce designs that won’t frustrate you by not working, but that will delight you with their reliable performance in the heat of competition.

Good design is about more than just the hardware. Software counts for a lot, and Winning Design! has you covered. You’ll find chapters on program design and organization with tips on effective coding and documentation practices. You’ll learn about master programs and the needed flexibility they provide. There’s even a section on presenting your robot and software designs to the judges.

Winning Design! is the book you need if your involved in competitions such as FIRST LEGO League events. Whether coach, parent, or student, you’ll find much in this book to make your design and competition experience fun and memorable, and educational.

Please note: the print version of this title is black & white; the eBook is full color.

What you’ll learn

Build winning robots on a foundation of good chassis design
Reduce variability in robot mechanical movements
Design modular attachments for quick change during competition
Solve navigation problems such as steering, squaring up, and collision detection
Manage software using master programs and other techniques
Power your robot attachments via motors and pneumatics

Who this book is for

Winning Design! LEGO Mindstorms NXT Design Patterns for Fun and Competition is aimed at students, parents, teachers, and coaches involved in LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT robot design and programming. Teachers and coaches will find the book to be a valuable teaching resource. Students and parents will find insight into good design practices. And all readers will enjoy the increased satisfaction that comes from building designs that actually work, and that can be relied upon to continue to work every time.

Table of Contents

Design Considerations
Chassis Design
Going Straight
Consistent Turning
Line Following and Detection
Squaring Up
Collision Detection
Passive Attachments
Power Attachments
Pneumatics
Master Programs
Program Management
Documentation and Presentation
Building DemoBot
Building the Motor Matching Machine

Customer Reviews:

Horrible printing - useful material

By NXT dad - October 27, 2011

Unfortunately, the book preview is completely wrong for this book. The actual book uses very cheap B&W printing. As a result, the pictures of robots and the instructions for building models are completely illegible. As an adult, I was able to piece together the models with some guesswork. However, the target audience for the book is late elementary/middle school kids. My kids found it extremely frustrating to use the book. I ended up purchasing the PDF version of the book. The illustrations in the PDF are in color and are much higher quality than the printed book! I would recommend the PDF version for anyone considering this book.

The actual contents of the book are quite useful for kids interested in the competitions with the NXT robot. There are lots of good ideas and some basic designs to get started with. Among the books that I have seen for contests like FLL, this is the best from a technical content point of view.

So... 1 star for the printing and 4 stars... read more

An Excellent Resource!

By luv2teach "Bookworm" - December 20, 2010

This book provides extremely useful information for preparing and getting ahead in the robotics competition. As a rookie coach, I wish I had access to this book prior to this year's FLL tournament. It can be very helpful to both rookie and experienced teams/coaches as it discusses many design and programming topics that teams will encounter so that teams can achieve consistent results with their robots. There are lots of typos but a small distraction for what this book has to offer. I highly recommend.

Fantastic Resource

By Lego mom - February 28, 2011

If you're interested in creative ways to solve NXT problems, then this book is for you. It offers both software solutions and building solutions. I coach an NXT team and have 10 boys ages 9-14, after reading this book we all learned something!