Good starters book

[suggy]

Hi all, New to this site and Mindstorms. Just got myself a Mindstorm NXT 2.0 kit, have built the models that the software has. I am finding the programing a little hard and am looking for a book that will cover from the very basic to advanced programing.
What do you sugest?

Regards

Ian

[mightor]

Laurens Valk's "The LEGO Mindstorms NXT 2.0 Discovery Book" is a great way to get started building robots and programming NXT-G.

http://discovery.laurensvalk.com/

There are some really cool robot models in it and the building instructions are easy to follow. It also teaches you all the basics of NXT-G programming and progresses nicely throughout the book. By the end you will be able to program just about anything you can imagine!

- Xander

[haydenstudios]

I don't have that book, but if you are mostly looking to buy a book that helps you with programming, and not much with building,(I'm assuming you're going to still be using NXT-G for a little while) then this book is great. http://apress.com/book/view/9781430229766 It is suitable for anyone ages 8 and up. It says it's suitalbe for ages 10+, but I think that it's so kid friendly that an eight-year-old could read and comprehed it and start writing advanced programs. When I was twelve, and didn't have the first clue on how to use anything in the data or advanced pallete. Learning advanced programming seemed hopeless to me even when I looked at the help files which just weren't worded in simple enough terms. I then decided to give this book a shot. Before reading this book, I only knew how to use the blocks in the common, action, and flow palettes. A month later, I found myself programming pong! Not only did it help me learn the blocks existing in the software, but after reading it, learning how to use third party blocks magically became a snap! Now I did get the first edition, because this all took place in summer of 2009 and when the 1.0 was popular, but I'm sure that the second edition which is targeted at users of the 2.0 will not be much different. Now I did find the first chapter to be rather frivolous, but I had faith that it would progress into more advanced stuff. Sorry if you do not have the same kind of click with this book that I did almost two years ago, but I owe so much to James Kelly for augmenting my programming abilies.

[suggy]

Thanks guys, both books now orded

Ian

[btjackson70]

Hi Ian,

The book that help me the most is The Art of LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT-G Programming. It covers how all the blocks work and how to use them in real programs. The author does a good job of showing how to build a program from the ground up, which is exactly what I needed. Before I read this book I could understand how the sample programs and other program I got online worked, but I was at a loss when I wanted to write my own programs.

Bill

[bungeshea]

I know technicly it is not a book, but I found the NXT 2.0 by Example CD really good. It has over 25 NXT 2.0 projects and over 65 NXT 1.0 projects, which can be built by buying extra parts. It also has over 100 fully commented NXT-G programs to learn from and 3 NXC programs to get you started with BricxCC. You can get the CD from http://nxtprograms.com

[fuzzball27]

If you would like to eventually advance from NXT-G to a higher level programming (such as NXC, NBC, leJos, Robot-C) this forum is one of the BEST places for learning! Also, if you would like to eventually start diving into the wonderful world of raw electronics, Extreme NXT is a very good learning source.

[webstorms]

I am finding the programing a little hard.

I'm no sure to what extend you wish to program, but here is what I suggest you use:
Beginner:

You should consider maybe using "Simple" that I developed as part of my Science Fair submission. All you need to know is to speak English. You can download it here: https://sites.google.com/site/lukesgsfentry/data
For help just contact the email in the help section of the App.

Or else just use "NXT-G". There are books helping you how to use it.

Advance:

Have a look at NXC or any other Text based environment supported for the NXT such as Java.

Hope this helps you.