Here’s your chance to win a copy of the new LEGO Collector’s Guide (currently not available for sale in North America). Enter the raffle hosted by the LEGO Community Development on 1000steine for a chance to win one of 10 copies of the book and 1 premium edition copy. Click on the picture below to go to the raffle!
UPDATE: Non-European LEGO fans concerned that their community isn’t represented in the list on the form can simply select “LUGNET” instead.
I first read George Orwell’s Animal Farm as a child, long before learning about the complex allegory of historical references (such as Snowball‘s representation of Leon Trotsky). When I read it again in college, a whole new dimension opened on the page.
Harrison uses BrickForge animals to illustrate a crucial scene in the book:
Most people probably know Xueren for his amazing collection of custom minifigs, but he’s also an accomplished builder, as he demonstrates with buildings like this one.
On the street level, a vendor sells roasted chestnuts:
Naturally, the resident of the second floor, a certain Mr. Holmes, has a secret identity:
I recently received a LEGO® MINDSTORMS® NXT set for my birthday (my wife is awesome!) so naturally I was excited to get the chance to review the newest Mindstorms book from No Starch Press. The author, Fay Rhodes co-authored the The Lego Mindstorms NXT Idea Book, is a member of MCP (Mindstorms Community Partners), and a contributor on the blog The NXT STEP.
The LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT ZOO! is a departure from previous books on LEGO’s robotics system. According to the book’s preface, the author intended this book for people who were not familiar with the NXT system, namely children, parents, teachers, and others new to NXT.
Her intent was to write a book that would be a simple and fun introduction to the system, while at the same time enabling the builder to construct some truly unusual robots.
First of all, I was impressed with the simplicity of the book. I own a couple of other NXT books and they start with complex chapters on programming. Fay Rhodes takes a different approach. She starts off with a very brief introduction into the programming language (6 pages versus 30+ in other books) and then she dives into actually constructing the robots. I think this is a great change, as people who are new to NXT want to start building robots immediately.
The instructions are easy to follow and each one starts off with a pictorial parts list. I did have one problem with the instructions. It is difficult to tell the difference between friction pins and regular ones. This could cause potential problems, but I was able to figure it out without too much trouble. Also, it would have been nice if the instructions were in color, but I’m sure that would have driven the cost up too much.
Regarding the robots themselves, they are quite unusual. As the name of the book implies, all the bots are animals. There are a total of nine — a frog, rabbit, camel, spider, alligator, dinosaur, elephant, skunk, and a peacock. Of these nine robots, only two (the skunk and peacock) travel on wheels. The remaining seven robots either hop or walk and the skunk has a surprise projectile weapon system! But my personal favorite is the spider. Who can’t love a robot that walks on eight legs?
NXT Spider from Rick Rhodes on Vimeo.
The techniques for walking and hopping are surprisingly simple and aren’t horribly parts intensive. I don’t have a huge collection of Technic pieces and I was able to build most of these with fairly minor parts substitutions. The peacock and ‘gator suffered the most, as I was rather low on important pieces, but I built the other robots quite easily.
A number of the robots do require non-LEGO pieces, which may annoy LEGO purists, but I understand that many NXT builders do this. Most of the uses I understood (fishing line and such), but one of the non-LEGO pieces in the two hopping robots confused me, because there was a LEGO solution readily available. Rhodes suggests using “rubber fingertips” from an office supply store as ends on the legs. These keep the robot from sliding as it prepares to hop. But there are rubber Technic pieces that can be attached to the leg, which have the same effect. Oddly enough, these pieces come in the NXT set. I used them and they worked fine.
After the instructions for each robot, Rhodes includes several pages of programming instructions. These mostly consist of screenshots, which are quite helpful. This way, you can see exactly how the configuration screens should look at each step. All you should have to do is follow the instructions, and the robots function as intended. These screen shots really take the intimidation factor out of learning a new programming language.
I did find a couple of typos in the programming sections, which could have messed up functionality. They were easily fixed, but you should be aware that the programs might not be perfect. These included a sensor that was plugged into the wrong port (instructions said port 4, but the program used port 2) and a motor that ran the opposite direction. These didn’t stop the robots from operating; some just didn’t work as intended. So, by following the programming steps exactly, you will still get a robot that runs.
Overall, I would recommend LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT ZOO! for any NXT builder. I didn’t expect that it would be written “down” enough for a beginner. But the robots are simple to build, the instructions are easy to follow, the programs are quick to write and they work.
So, if you’re just getting into NXT this would a good book to get you started. But if you have been involved in NXT for while, don’t be put off by the simplicity of this book. It has some rather unconventional techniques that end up building some really intriguing bots. Anyone can learn from this book.
LEGO Community Development Manager Jan Beyer announces that a LEGO Collector catalog will be released this summer featuring almost all the LEGO sets produced since 1958. This looks like a great item for collectors or just fans who are interested in seeing the wonderful products from LEGO throughout the years.
It is the 50th anniversary of the LEGO Brick and just in time Fantasia Verlag GmbH will publish the LEGO® Collector. This unique guide comprises around 800 pages presenting nearly all sets produced by the LEGO Group since 1958, whether released in Europe, the USA, Asia or Australia. It is the first reference book of its kind in the LEGO history which will list all LEGO sets in chronological order. This bilingual (English/German) Collector is for the fan and collector alike. It is a high quality product full of details. Besides around 8.000 colour photographs of LEGO sets it presents additional information which even includes the number of components the sets are made of.
The LEGO® Collector is a unique gathering of details concerning LEGO sets which makes it a must have for anybody interested in the Danish “toy of the century”. Fantasia Verlag which is based in Dreieich, a small town just outside Frankfurt, is a well established publisher of all kinds of catalogues dealing with collectors` items. The wide range of catalogues includes several issues of the market leading “Spielzeug aus dem Ei” which contains Kinder Surprise toys and accessories. Additionally the Fantasia Verlag produces catalogues focusing on Trading Card Games such as Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic the Gathering as well as reference books for Swatch and Star Wars collectables to name a few.
Fantasia Verlag GmbH, ISBN: 978-3-935976-52-7, 22,90 € (Germany)
50 years of play, fun and joy – around 8.000 LEGO® sets in one book
Key data LEGO® Collector:
· Expected date of publication: May 2008
· Around 800 pages
· Bilingual: English / German
· Around 8.000 sets printed in colour
· One chapter for every year: 1958 – 2008
· Additional information: number of components; available from/until
· Rating (1-6 LEGO® Bricks) to establish the rareness of sets
· Extra: Chapter with key rings
· Extra: List of all published Service-Sets
· Index to quickly fi nd the desired sets
· MSRP 22,90€ (Germany); the price may vary in other EU countries due to different tax regulations
Via Eurobricks
Update (AB): BB Gadgets has a first look at the cover and one of the pages. Head on over to check out the full-size pictures:
Harrison (aka “Corran101”) submits four epic entries to the CC vig contest — vignettes inspired by Homer’s Odyssey.
Our hero Odysseus has many adventures. In no particular order (go read the book!), he battles the sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis, rides a sheep out of a cave, does a bit of feasting with Circe, and fires an arrow through some axe handles.
Check out more pics in Harrison’s photoset on Flickr.
It’s always a pleasure when I encounter a connection between two of my great interests — LEGO and literature. Remember Norman Mailer and Douglas Coupland?
Writer Heidi W. Durrow contacted the blog this morning with a link to her beautiful, touching story Ethnic Lego Girls Carry Spears. Here’s an excerpt:
“You be Pocahantas,” Jimmy says. “I’ll be the cowboy on the horse.”
The horses come in shades of brown and black. Jimmy’s horse is black like me. His cowboy’s Lego yellow. He’s white like Jimmy is.
Read the rest of Heidi W. Durrow’s story online in SmokeLong Quarterly, along with an insightful interview about ethnicity and The Brick.
Apparently, the late writer Norman Mailer was a LEGO fan of sorts. You can see him here in his New York apartment with his large LEGO sculpture in the background:
Apparently, Mailer built “a vast Lego city, incorporating some 15,000 pieces, known as the city of the future, seeming to take as much pride in it as in any of his other creations.”
According to architecture writer Lynn Becker, Mailer’s LEGO creation appears as the frontispiece in his 1966 book Cannibals and Christians:
So not only is this LEGO creation by one of the leading writers of the past 50 years, it’s built from vintage LEGO! Just the thing to expand my selection of basic bricks. I bet they’d need a good dusting, though…
Check out our previous post about writer Douglas Coupland’s LEGO obsession.
(Via KyleSmithOnline.com, with a tip from reader James Lucas Jones.)
In a Fox News article today, reporters comment on a LEGO book that instructs you how to make automated inventions including an automatic LEGO pistol that shoots out LEGO plates. Check out the video, read the news, and take a look at the book Forbidden LEGO.
I love poetry more than I love LEGO (shock!), so it’s nice when I can blog a little poetry here on The Brothers Brick. Posting in the middle of the night while at BrickFest, Bill Ward gives me just such an opportunity with his set of six beautiful poetry vignettes. Here are my three favorites.
“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost:
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Frost:
“Yonder See the Morning Blink” by A.E. Housman:
Be sure to check out his other great vignettes as well:
With a recent update, I just discovered Stuart Immonen’s Flickr photostream. Unlike those of us with hundreds (I’m pushing 500) LEGO images, Stuart has just a handful, but they’re all pretty darn cool. In no particular order, here are a few of my favorites.
Gregor Samsa from Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis:
A beautiful lady — Plastic Fantastic indeed:
A “Van Ship” from the anime series Last Exile:
The title character from the classic anime series Astro Boy:
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Douglas Coupland, author of books such as Generation X and Microserfs is apparently a LEGO fan. I noticed that several of his books have covers that incorporate LEGO into the design:
A quick search for Douglas Coupland LEGO turned up this article. Here’s Coupland talking about LEGO:
Thing is, we all played with Lego…. There just comes a time when you don’t go into that box anymore, and then for the next 30 years Lego’s been playing with me. Messing with my mind and my way of looking at things. I’ve [been wondering] all this time, where do I end and toys begin?
Apparently, though, Coupland’s dark age is over. The article describes an art installation he’s created (sorry, no pictures), in which he uses LEGO. I really like this next quote:
I had to build the Cape Cod house with two dormer windows, and my God! My fingers still had that weird Lego tingling feeling. I was still hunting down in the bottom of the box for that one piece. That sound? You remember that sound? Of stirring around in the bottom of a box of Lego? When I’m building things in my mind, I call it ‘shapehead.’ When I’ve got shapehead, I can’t sleep, I might as well just keep on building and building…
Nice. I guess that makes me a shapehead.