Chapter 1. Building Biped Robots

In this chapter you will learn the complete state of art

of the LEGO walking robots developed in the last 10 years.

You will get in touch with the most used design approaches

of biped robots that do not need sensors to balance.

Chapter 2. Quasimodo

This is a funny interlacing legs biped that uses an original solution for the COG

(center of gravity) shifting, making it resemble the Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

It serves as occasion to discuss the common issues about this kind of bipeds.

You will meet NXC, the powerful programming language used throughout the book.

Chapter 3. Finite State Machines

The arguments is discussed keeping it simple and as near as possible to the practice.

FSMs are a software technique to give your robots simple autonomous behavior

and to manage its movements in an elegant way.

The robots of this book that use FSM are the AT-ST biped, the NXT Turtle, and JohnNXT.

Chapter 4. All Terrain Scout Transport (AT-ST) Biped

This chicken-like biped comes directly from Star Wars movies.

It serves as an example of a jerky COG-shifting biped, and can even turn!

Its shape is designed as close as possible to the real AT-ST.

Chapter 5. Omni-Biped

This robot is a smooth COG-shifting biped. It brings the inheritance of

the Alpha-Rex bipedal walking to the highest level.

It walks smooth and fast, and can turn on its own footprints.

(emproved version of the Omni Biped shown here)

Chapter 6. The NXT Turtle

In this chapter you will bring a robotic pet to life!

Its resemblance to a real turtle is enchanced by the retracting head.

The topic of the chapter is the implementation of the autonomous behavior

for the turtle using FSMs. (emproved version of the NXT Turtle shown here)

Chapter 7. The Mine Sweeper

This robot, equipped with sensors and an underactuated arm,

can find and collect "mines" built with dark LEGO parts.

(emproved version of the Mine Sweeper shown here)

Chapter 8. JohnNXT

On huge popular demand, here comes my Johnny five NXT replica!

This robot features moving treads, rotating head, poseable neck and eyelids, moving torso,

underactuated grabbing mechanism and laser.

You can use the provided SDK (Software Development Kit) to fully customize its program.

Its double-NXT system uses the high speed serial port of the NXT, which use is made simple by the NXC library provided. So, JohnNXT can be even remote-controlled!

(emproved version of the JohnNXT version shown here)

Here you can see the JohnNXT Hacks & Mods page!

Chapter 9. Building a Remote Control Device

This Bluetooth remote is quite ergonomical, featuring two analog joysticks and two triggers.

With it, you can remote-control all the robots of this book.

Download book source code (24 May 2009)

Share your creations on the Worldwide Readers' Gallery!

Compare the parts assortment of NXT 1.0 and 2.0

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