Using motors, gears, pneumatics, pulleys, linkages, and more, you can design LEGO models that really move.The Unofficial LEGO Technic Builder's Guide is filled with building tips for creating strong yet elegant machines and mechanisms with the Technic system. Author Pawel "Sairel" Kmiec will teach you the foundations of LEGO Technic building, from simple machines to advanced mechanics, even explaining how to create realistic to-scale models. Sariel, a world-renowned LEGO Technic expert, offers unique insight into mechanical principles like torque, power translation, and gear ratios, all using Technic bricks. You'll learn how to:Create sturdy connections that can withstand serious stressRe-create specialized LEGO pieces like casings and u-joints, and build solutions like Schmidt and Oldham couplings, when no standard piece will doBuild custom differentials, suspensions, transmissions, and steering systemsPick the right motor for the job—and transform its properties to suit your needsCombine studfull and studless building styles for a stunning lookCreate remote-controlled vehicles, lighting systems, motorized compressors, and pneumatic enginesThis beautifully illustrated, full-color book will inspire you with ideas for building amazing machines like tanks with suspended treads, supercars, cranes, bulldozers, and much more. Your Technic adventure starts now!

    This full color book teaches you fundamental programming and robotics skills as you build and program powerful robots that move, monitor sensors, and respond to their environments. You will build seven increasingly sophisticated robots like the BRICK SORT3R (a robot that sorts bricks by color and size), the THE SNATCH3R (an autonomous robotic arm), and LAVA R3X (a humanoid that walks and talks). Valk also covers more advanced programming techniques like data wires and variables, and shows you how to create custom remote control programs. More than 100 building and programming challenges throughout encourage you to think creatively and to apply what you've learned to invent your own robots.

    . . there aren't many titles that haven’t been bestowed on LEGO toys, and it’s not hard to see why. From its inception in the early 1930s right up until today, the LEGO Group’s history is as colorful as the toys it makes. Few other playthings share the LEGO brand’s creative spirit, educative benefits, resilience, quality, and universal appeal. The LEGO name is now synonymous with playtime, but it wasn’t always so. This history charts the birth of the LEGO Group in the workshop of a Danish carpenter and its steady growth as a small, family-run toy manufacturer to its current position as a market-leading, award-winning brand. The company’s ever-increasing catalogof products—including the earliest wooden toys, plastic bricks, play themes, and other building systems such as DUPLO, Technic, and MINDSTORMS—are chronicled in detail, alongside the manufacturing process, LEGOLAND parks, licensed toys, and computer games. Learn all about how LEGO pulled itself out of an economic crisis and embraced technology to make building blocks relevant to twenty-first-century children and discover the vibrant fan community of kids and adults whose conventions, websites, and artwork keep the LEGO spirit alive. As nostalgic as it is contemporary, A Million Little Bricks will have you reminiscing about old Classic Space sets, rummaging through the attic for forgotten Minifigure friends, and playing with whatever LEGO bricks you can get your hands on (even if it means sharing with your kids).

    Learn how in The Unofficial LEGO Builder's Guide. Includes the Brickopedia, a visual dictionary of nearly 300 of the most commonly used LEGO elements!

    As they track the Destructor and rebuild the models he destroys, you'll follow along and meet some of the world's best builders. Learn to create sleek spaceships, exotic pirate hideaways, fire-breathing dragons, fast cars, and much more. With nearly 40 step-by-step breakdowns and 100 example models, The LEGO Adventure Book is sure to spark your imagination and keep you building!

    Jason Briggs, author of the popular online tutorial "Snake Wrangling for Kids," begins with the basics of how to install Python and write simple commands. In bite-sized chapters, he instructs readers on the essentials of Python, including how to use Python's extensive standard library, the difference between strings and lists, and using for-loops and while-loops. By the end of the book, readers have built a game and created drawings with Python's graphics library, Turtle. Each chapter closes with fun and relevant exercises that challenge the reader to put their newly acquired knowledge to the test.

    Whether you're a budding hobbyist or an engineer, you'll benefit from the perfectly paced lessons that walk you through useful, artistic, and educational exercises that gradually get more advanced. In addition to specific projects, the book shares best practices in programming and design that you can apply to your own projects. Code snippets and schematics will serve as a useful reference for future projects even after you've mastered all the topics in the book.Includes a number of projects that utilize different capabilities of the Arduino, while interfacing with external hardware Features chapters that build upon each other, tying in concepts from previous chapters to illustrate new ones Includes aspects that are accompanied by video tutorials and other multimedia content Covers electrical engineering and programming concepts, interfacing with the world through analog and digital sensors, communicating with a computer and other devices, and internet connectivity Explains how to combine smaller topics into more complex projects Shares downloadable materials and source code for everything covered in the book Projects compatible with many official Arduino boards including Arduino Uno; Arduino Leonardo; Arduino Mega 2560; Arduino Due; Arduino Nano; Arduino Mega ADK; LilyPad Arduino and may work with Arduino-compatible boards such as Freeduino and new third party certified boards such as the Intel Galileo Exploring Arduino takes you on an adventure and provides you with exclusive access to materials not found anywhere else!

    I also love the sense of humor. It's very good at disarming the fear. And it's gorgeous. I'll be recommending this book highly." --Tom Igoe, author of Physical Computing and Making Things TalkWant to learn the fundamentals of electronics in a fun, hands-on way? With Make: Electronics, you'll start working on real projects as soon as you crack open the book. Explore all of the key components and essential principles through a series of fascinating experiments. You'll build the circuits first, then learn the theory behind them!Build working devices, from simple to complex You'll start with the basics and then move on to more complicated projects. Go from switching circuits to integrated circuits, and from simple alarms to programmable microcontrollers. Step-by-step instructions and more than 500 full-color photographs and illustrations will help you use -- and understand -- electronics concepts and techniques.Discover by breaking things: experiment with components and learn from failureSet up a tricked-out project space: make a work area at home, equipped with the tools and parts you'll needLearn about key electronic components and their functions within a circuitCreate an intrusion alarm, holiday lights, wearable electronic jewelry, audio processors, a reflex tester, and a combination lockBuild an autonomous robot cart that can sense its environment and avoid obstaclesGet clear, easy-to-understand explanations of what you're doing and why

    Pearl breaks the big we-need-a-sandcastle problem into smaller steps, then uses conditionals, loops, and other basic coding concepts to tell Pascal exactly what to do. But building a sandcastle isn’t as easy as it sounds when surfboards, mischievous dogs, and coding mishaps get in the way! Just when it looks like the sandcastle might never work, Pearl uses her coding skills to save the day and create something even better: a gorgeous sandcastle kingdom!

    With this guide, pioneering Go programmer Mark Summerfield shows how to write code that takes full advantage of Go's breakthrough features and idioms. Both a tutorial and a language reference, "Programming in Go" brings together all the knowledge you need to evaluate Go, think in Go, and write high-performance software with Go. Summerfield presents multiple idiom comparisons showing exactly how Go improves upon older languages, calling special attention to Go's key innovations. Along the way, he explains everything from the absolute basics through Go's lock-free channel-based concurrency and its flexible and unusual duck-typing type-safe approach to object-orientation. Throughout, Summerfield's approach is thoroughly practical. Each chapter offers multiple live code examples designed to encourage experimentation and help you quickly develop mastery. Wherever possible, complete programs and packages are presented to provide realistic use cases, as well as exercises. Coverage includes:-- Quickly getting and installing Go, and building and running Go programs -- Exploring Go's syntax, features, and extensive standard library -- Programming Boolean values, expressions, and numeric types -- Creating, comparing, indexing, slicing, and formatting strings -- Understanding Go's highly efficient built-in collection types: slices and maps -- Using Go as a procedural programming language -- Discovering Go's unusual and flexible approach to object orientation -- Mastering Go's unique, simple, and natural approach to fine-grained concurrency -- Reading and writing binary, text, JSON, and XML files -- Importing and using standard library packages, custom packages, and third-party packages -- Creating, documenting, unit testing, and benchmarking custom packages

    You'll learn about styles like Art Deco, Modernism, and High-Tech, and find inspiration in galleries of LEGO models. Then take your turn building 12 models in a variety of styles. Snap together some bricks and learn architecture the fun way!

    An astonishing collection." —Publishers Weekly Mix hundreds of thousands of LEGO bricks with dozens of artists, and what do you get? Beautiful LEGO, a compendium of LEGO artwork that showcases a stunning array of pieces ranging from incredibly lifelike replicas of everyday objects and famous monuments to imaginative renderings of spaceships, mansions, and mythical creatures. You'll also meet the minds behind the art. Interviews with the artists take you inside the creative process that turns simple, plastic bricks into remarkable LEGO masterpieces.

    

    If the idea of a computer science book without computers upsets you, please close your eyes until you’ve finished reading the rest of this page.The truth is that computer science is not really about the computer. It is just a tool to help you see ideas more clearly. You can see the moon and stars without a telescope, smell the flowers without a fluoroscope, have fun without a funoscope, and be silly sans oscilloscope.You can also play with computer science without... you-know-what. Ideas are the real stuff of computer science. This book is about those ideas, and how to find them.

    This full color coffee table book is styled as a diary of the fictional Victorian-era explorer, Captain Herbert Jobson, as he catalogs the wonders of the world for Queen Victoria. Award-winning LEGO builder and special effects master Guy Himber combines brick-built marvels with a swashbuckling narrative, fascinating historical trivia, and authentic Steampunk-styled detailing to bring this fantastical story to life.