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)

Building the dragster

Before we get into the building of this dragster, let's explore the strategy being used for this dragster. The strategy for drag racing is all about speed – how fast can we get from the starting line to the finish line? That is it! The design of this particular dragster is based on the following strategies:

  • Sitting low to the ground to eliminate drag
  • Friction points: The less friction we have the better
  • Gearing up to max out the speed of the dragster
  • Weight balance to help the dragster stay straight

Keeping these features in mind will help you understand why the dragster is built the way it has been designed. Additionally, the dragster has been designed in a way to allow plenty of customization to be done to it without losing sight of these strategies. The body design has been created to give the look of a dragster, but you could easily modify the design to your own liking, as well as adding or reducing weight to the dragster...