This book is organized around chapters that recreate five inventions of Leonardo da Vinci using LEGO. Each of these chapters consists of the following:
This chapter consists of a tour through Leonardo's life and five of his most famous inventions to be built with LEGO. It also introduces the NXT and its components and provides a glimpse of the NXT community and some of its most prominent sites.
This chapter discusses the five different programming environments used in this book: the official LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Software, RobotC, NXC, pbLua, and leJOS NXJ. It focuses on those that allow running programs directly on the Brick—autonomous robots rather than those confined to remote control from an external device such as a computer or a cell phone.
This chapter is the first robot chapter. It deals with Leonardo's design of an armored car, a machine like today's military tank. Like the following four chapters, it provides a historical background, a discussion of the LEGO hardware challenges and their solutions, the building instructions, and the programming of the robot with five different programming environments.
This chapter introduces one of the catapults Leonardo designed and shows how to build it with LEGO. You will encounter the device he invented to set up kinetic energy and the touch sensor.
This chapter shows how to build Leonardo's revolving bridge with LEGO. You will gain insight into motor synchronization and learn how to make use of the ultrasonic sensor.
This chapter presents a LEGO implementation of Leonardo's aerial screw, alsoᾹbut misleadingly—known as the "helicopter." It's an introduction to mimicking curved structures and to the usage of the light sensor.
This chapter showcases another machine invented by Leonardo for the purpose of flying and how to build it with LEGO. Its "flapping wings" make it different from the aerial screw. You will learn how to use wires to run mechanical parts and to remotely control a NXT robot.
This is a discussion of the conceivable steps the reader may take from here. It discusses possible refinements of the preceding five robots and the possibility of remotely controlling them. It sheds some light on other inventions of Leonardo's that might be created with LEGO, and finally introduces some web sites and books recommended for further reading.
This book contains four appendixes. The first provides step-by-step guides to the installation and configuration of the five different programming environments in this book. The second contains a copy of Leonardo's letter of application to the duke of Milan that is mentioned frequently in the book. The final two appendixes are a glossary and a bibliography.