Extreme MINDSTORMS: An Advanced Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS

Three MINDSTORMS experts have joined with the maintainer of the legOS HOWTO to produce the book that all advanced users of LEGO MINDSTORMS have been waiting for. Each author has written material based on his specialty. Dave Baum shows you how to take Not Quite C (NQC) to its limits. Ralph Hempel explains the ins and outs of pbForth. Michael Gasperi teaches you how to build numerous custom sensors with simple, systematic instructions. Luis Villa show you how (and when) to upgrade MINDSTORMS' built-in operating system to take advantage of the extra power of legOS, a complete C environment for the RCX.

Extreme MINDSTORMS: An Advanced Guide to LEGO MINDSTORMS starts with an overview of the RCX firmware and includes a whole chapter on RCX 2.0. Next, the book concentrates on the steps needed to build Seeker, a light-seeking robot, and to program it in NQC. Later chapters extend Seeker's functionality using pbForth and legOS. The book concludes with two chapters on building both custom passive and custom powered sensors. These sensors can take LEGO MINDSTORMS to levels impossible to achieve with just the parts supplied in the box or available through normal channels.

This book is designed to take the experienced user of Mindstorms to the next level. It contains information available nowhere else on such topics as sensor development, pbForth and LegOS. Numerous projects are presented with simple systematic instructions, and though the topics covered are advanced, readers should be able to assemble the projects and understand how they work without anyprior knowledge of electronics.

Dave Baum is a principal staff engineer at Motorola. With the advent of LEGO MINDSTORMS, Baum was able to combine two of his favorite pastimes: programming and building with LEGO. He then developed Not Quite C (NQC), a powerful language for programming MINDSTORMS robots that has been widely accepted by advanced users. Visit Dave's personal Web site at http://www.baumfamily.org/nqc.

Michael Gasperi has been an expert in LEGO Mindstorms sensors since they were first introduced in 1998. His popular web site and contributing chapters to Extreme Mindstorms (Apress, 2000) have guided many people through the process of building their own extensions to the kit.

Ralph Hempel is a professional engineer who specializes in embedded systems design. Ralph holds a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo. LEGO had been a part of Ralph's life since the late 1960s, but when he bought a set for his son Owen in 1997, the flame was rekindled. Besides building original Technic and Town models with his family, Ralph enjoys snowboarding, mountain biking, and playing blues harmonica.

Luis Villa is an undergraduate at Duke University studying computer science. He rediscovered LEGO and became an expert in LEGOS while preparing to become a teacher's assistant for a Duke course that used LEGO MINDSTORMS. Luis writes and maintains the legOS HOWTO, which can be found on the Web at http://legos.sourceforge.net/HOWTO. Besides maintaining the legOS HOWTO, Luis spends his spare time studying political theory and attending lots of Blue Devil basketball games.