Book Image

Smart Robotics with LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor

By : Aaron Maurer
Book Image

Smart Robotics with LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor

By: Aaron Maurer

Overview of this book

LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor is the latest addition to the LEGO MINDSTORMS theme. It features unique designs that you can use to build robots, and also enable you to perform activities using the robot inventor application. You'll begin by exploring the history of LEGO MINDSTORMS, and then delve into various elements of the Inventor kit. Moving on, you'll start working on different projects which will prepare you to build a variety of smart robots. The first robotic project involves designing a claw to grab objects, and helps you to explore how a smart robot is used in everyday life and in industry. The second project revolves around building a working guitar that can be played and modified to meet the needs of the user. As you advance, you'll explore the concept of biomimicry as you discover how to build a scorpion robot. In addition to this, you'll also work on a classic robotic challenge by building a sumobot. Throughout the book, you'll come across a variety of projects that will provide you with hands-on experience in building creative robots, such as building a Dragster, Egg Decorator, and Plankton from Spongebob Squarepants. By the end of this LEGO book, you'll have got to grips with the concepts behind building a robot, and also found creative ways to integrate them using the application based on your creative insights and ideas.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)

Chapter 2: Getting Started with the Robot Inventor Kit

Let's get started with exploring the kit. We have over 900 elements to build robots, upgraded sensors, a new Intelligent Hub compared to previous versions, and new programming platforms to bring our robots to life and control:

Figure 2.1 – The front of the box when you get your hands on this amazing kit

Figure 2.1 – The front of the box when you get your hands on this amazing kit

To begin with, we are going to examine what the new elements in this kit are for us to build within our designs, how the sensors have changed, and the new Intelligent Hub. As we explore, we will take a closer look at some excellent features of this kit to start learning more about this LEGO Mindstorms product.

Finally, we will do some exploration of the new programming interface and how we use code to bring our ideas to life. The end goal of this chapter is to make sure you understand all the possibilities and to build a foundation of basic knowledge of the kit to begin to build some of the exciting ideas to follow in the upcoming chapters. This would also be a perfect time to build some or all of the five robots that come with the software to see how everything works and operates. There is not any specific building in this chapter, but it serves as an understanding of what can be achieved with the parts.

In this chapter, we're going to cover the following main topics:

  • Overview of the kit
  • The Intelligent Hub
  • New elements
  • Sensors
  • Programming
  • Basic projects to learn more