LEGO Education

New NXT Module is Now Available!

In Jim Kelly’s latest module, Mystery Warehouse Part 1, Mulligan and his friend Veronica are searching for his uncle who has mysteriously disappeared. Their only clue to his whereabouts is a note that leads them to a dark and eerie warehouse. Once inside the friends’ robot building and programming skills are tested as they must race to complete some strange challenges and find Mulligan’s missing uncle.

Throughout this module, students will participate in two pre-challenge activities and one main challenge as they build and program a robot using the new HiTechnic Compass Sensor. CAD building instructions and complete programming instructions are provided along with Web links for downloading all programs used in the module.

Story and worksheets can be reproduced for helping students track their challenge progress and additional homework/extra credit activities are included throughout.

Part 2 and 3 of the module will be available soon and will utilize the HiTechnic Color and Acceleration Sensors.

Item Number: 991388
Price: $39.00

Interested? Please check out www.legoeducation.com for any additional product information.

New books for the LEGO MINDSTORMS Education NXT

LEGO Education’s 2007 Robotics catalog is out, and there are some new products available that you might not have heard about yet.

LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT: The Mayan Adventure, by Jim Kelly, uses a story based around an archeological exploration of a Mayan ruin to frame some interesting and challenging robotics projects. The book presents the challenges, discusses building techniques, offers a design journal, and even provides programming instructions. Jim also blogs at The NXT Step, a great spot on the web for lots of independent NXT resources.

Physics by Design, Edition II, by Barbara Bratzel, uses the engineering principles to teach physics and physical science using LEGO Education robot sets. The book includes activities that use both ROBOLAB 2.9 and NXT, as well as both the NXT- and RCX-based sets. This makes it an ideal addition to a classroom is slowly transitioning from the RCX-based sets to the LEGO MINDTORMS Education NXT sets. To learn more about Barbara, read about how she integrates engineering into her classroom, or take a look at her article at LEGOengineering.com about transitioning from RCX-based sets to NXT-based sets in her classroom.

Maximum LEGO NXT: Building Robots with Java Brains, by Brian Bagnall, shows how to use Java, a very popular programming language, to program and control robots built using the LEGO MINDTORMS Education NXT sets. The book includes JAVA nstallation and programming how-tos, project building instructions, integrating Bluetooth, and lots more. Brian also has a website, http://www.mts.net/~kbagnall/mindstorms/, where you can learn more about some of his projects

Physics and LEGO Robotics

Physics? Sure! LEGO MINDSTORMS Education NXT can be used to teach more than just robotics concepts. In fact, Barbara Bratzel has developed "a project-based course that teaches classical mechanics through engineering. It covers motion, forces, fluids, stability, work, and energy. The topics are approached from an engineering perspective, with building and designing reinforcing the conceptual physics material and vice versa." Since the students use NXT (and previously, RXC) sets to design and build robots, and have to program those robots using LEGO programming software, by the end of the course, the students are skilled at programming as a byproduct of the class. If you've seen Bratzel's Physics By Design before, you'll want to take another look at the upated Physics by Design: ROBOLAB Activities for the NXT and RCX. The book has been updated with lots of new activities for the NXT, while still retaining the activities and instructions for the RCX-based robots. The updates are woven in throughout the book, too, not just added on at the end, making this an ideal book to use in a classroom that is gradually transitioning from the RCX-based Team Challenge or RoboTech sets to the MINDSTORMS Education NXT base sets. For more information about the book, and to see a table of contents, you can visit the publisher's information page.

NXT Curriculum: Learn More

The new curriculum for LEGO MINDSTORMS Education NXT was developed at  Carnegie Mellon University.  They’ve launched a website to help teachers get acquainted with the new curriculum. Check it out at http://www-education.rec.ri.cmu.edu/nxt/.