Daniele Benedettelli - The LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Laboratory: Build, Program, and Experiment with Five Wicked Cool Robots

To the memory of Nari

Daniele Benedettelli is an Italian robotics engineer known worldwide for his LEGO MINDSTORMS creations, such as the LEGO Rubik Utopia (2007), Cyclops (2011), and LEGONARDO (2013). He prefers to be called Danny, mainly to avoid being mistaken for a girl named Danielle. (He once received an appreciation plaque in Bahrain for sharing her expertise and knowledge in robotics.)

In 1992, his creation Tom the cat lost early in a LEGO competition held in a toy store in his hometown, but he didnt give up. He kept playing well until he hit the dark age of LEGOa period in the life of an adult fan of LEGO (AFOL) when real-life interests (girls, in his case) replaced his passion for the plastic bricks. That is, until 2001when he discovered the LEGO MINDSTORMS RCX.

Since 2006, Benedettelli has collaborated with The LEGO Group in testing and developing the LEGO MINDSTORMS products as a MINDSTORMS Community Partner (MCP). In 2012, he was hired as an external programmer for LEGO Education. He was selected as one of 12 experts to test the LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3, and he created the EL3CTRIC GUITAR, one of the bonus models for the Retail set 31313.

In 2012, with the help of the openPICUS team, Benedettelli crowdfunded and brought to market the NXT2WIFI, a Wi-Fi adaptor for the NXT, which makes it possible to control robots with any browser-enabled device (such as computers, Android smartphones, iPhones, and iPads) and to build huge swarms of networked robots.

He currently works as a high school electronics and systems teacher and as a freelance LEGO designer for the Bricks4Kidz franchise. He has participated in many LEGO events, and he has been invited to ICT Education conferences around the world as a keynote speaker and workshop facilitator. His YouTube channel has millions of views, and his creations have been featured in many TV shows worldwide. Benedettelli sometimes plays piano and composes music (mainly soundtracks for his videos). He likes origami and drawing comics, the latter a passion that proved useful when creating this book. He is the author of two previous books: Creating Cool LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Robots (Apress, 2008) and LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Thinking Robots (No Starch Press, 2009). You can learn more about him at these links:

http://robotics.benedettelli.com/

http://music.benedettelli.com/

http://www.facebook.com/robotics.benedettelli/

http://twitter.com/DBenedettelli

Claude Baumann has taught advanced LEGO MINDSTORMS robotics in after-school classes for 15 years. He participated in beta testing for the ROBOLAB software developed at the Center for Engineering and Outreach (CEEO) at Tufts University ( http://ceeo.tufts.edu/ ). He created ULTIMATE ROBOLAB, a cross-compiler environment that allowed graphical programming of LEGO RCX firmware, and with it conceived the worlds only self-replicating program for the LEGO RCX (some call it a virus). Claude also served as a co-developer on the CEEO NXT Module team. More recently, he has participated as a MINDSTORMS Community Partner (MCP) during the development of the new EV3 Intelligent Brick. He has been the assessor of various high school robotics projects and is the author of Eureka! Problem Solving with LEGO Robotics (NTS Press, 2013), several articles, and conference presentations. His special interest is robotic sound localization. He is the head of a network of high-school boarding institutions in Luxembourg (EU), and hes married with three children and three grandchildren.

Arte Invisibile or Invisible Art ( http://www.arteinvisibile.com/ ; http://www.facebook.com/AssociazioneArteInvisibile/ ) is a nonprofit association formed in 2007 by young artists living in Tuscany, Italy. It has over 100 members.

Arte Invisibile coordinates courses for comic design, illustration, digital art, screenplay writing, and animation with the goal of bringing young people into the field of art and related professions. Over the years, the association has produced various publications and organized exhibits and workshops with world-famous artists. It also manages a well-supplied comic library with many rare comic books.

I didnt remember how tough it was to write a LEGO MINDSTORMS book, especially with a comic story inside! There are many people I need to thank for making this possible. First, thanks to my family for their support and patience during this period: to my completely newbie parents , who tested the robots building instructions and helped make them crystal clear; to my brother , who kept telling me to get a real job; to my grandparents, who were dismayed to see what toys have become (especially my ninja-like grandma who stealthily approached my LEGO work desk from behind and whispered Whats up? Are you working? turning my hair a few shades grayer). And lets not forget the tiresomely affectionate family dog, who covered my floor with fur and drool and barked at my LEGO robots as if they were alive.

Thanks to the No Starch Press team, especially to Bill for believing in this project and for his reviews and suggestions, and to Riley for her tireless and kind support.

A big thanks to Claude Baumann , renowned school manager, teacher, and author, who punctually and meticulously reviewed the technical aspects of this book. Thanks to the twelve monkeys group, of which I am proud member, for their friendship and inspiration. Thanks to John Hansen , for his early EV3 screen capture tool. And thanks to the LEGO MINDSTORMS team, especially Lee (for hiring me as a programmer for LEGO Edu); Steven (for endorsing my projects); and Camilla , Flemming B. , Henrik , Jesper , Lars Joe , Linda , Marie , Oliver , Pelle , and Peter .

A huge thanks to all the LDraw community members who developed the bits and tools to create high-quality LEGO-like building instructions. Special thanks to master builder and book author Philippe Hurbain (Philo), a master in modeling 3D LEGO elements, and to Kevin Clague , developer of LPUB4.

Thanks to my dear photographer friend Francesco Rossi ( http://www.fr-ph.com/ ) for the great photo on the book cover! Hes helped me with the crazy and beautiful photos for my top models, like Cyclops and LEGONARDO. Girls dont believe its me portrayed in his photos and want to meet him at once! True story.

Thanks to Marco and Susanna for helping me transform a first-draft script into a full-blown graphic narrative and to Nicola for his last-minute help.