Ashwin Shah - Build and Code Creative Robots with LEGO BOOST: Unleash your creativity and imagination by building exciting robotics projects

Unleash your creativity and imagination by building exciting robotics projects

Ashwin Shah

BIRMINGHAMMUMBAI

Copyright 2021 Packt Publishing

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First published: November 2021

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To my mother, Meena, and father, Rajesh, for always being a rock-solid support pillar for me across the phases of my life. To my wife, Ushma, for her never-ending motivation, my daughter, Misha, for being my source of inspiration, and to Mr. Manoj, for his unwavering faith in me. Last but not least, to each family member of RoboFun Lab!

Ashwin Shah

I am excited to write the foreword for this book, Build and Code Creative Robots with LEGO BOOST, which is specifically designed for kids aged 8 to 12 years as well as for LEGO enthusiasts. Today, robotics is the key to executing the industrial revolution 4.0 across the globe. I see robotics as an interdisciplinary branch that includes a lot of learning and application from control systems, coding, and mechanics! If students learn about robotics during their time at school, they can get exposure to their field of choice in a fun and hands-on way, which can shape their career in a much better way. In this book, Ashwin has tried to build a strong base for robotics learning using the LEGO BOOST kit, with increasing levels of complexity. If you follow these chapters one after the other, I am sure that you will be able to build and code your own robots with unique mechanisms. The use of the Scratch programming language to code your BOOST robot is a welcome move from Ashwin and it will help you all to easily code your robots since many of you will be using Scratch programming at school. I am sure you will be able to complete the capstone project and that it will excite you to explore the challenging yet amazing world of various robotics competitions for your age group.

You will gain a lot of technical knowledge to build and code robots and will be able to innovate further using this robotics kit. Remember one thing: the basics that you will learn throughout this book will help you build on your robotics knowledge when you gradually explore more challenging robotics kits, sensors, and programming languages in the times to come.

Wishing you all a very happy and fun-filled time while building and coding these robots.

Mr. Manoj Patel

Director and CEO, RoboFun Lab Pvt. Ltd.

Ashwin Shah is an electronics and communication engineer from India. Teaching is his passion and he started working at the tender age of 16 as a doubt solver for younger kids at after-school classes. Today, he is a successful edupreneur who runs his own STEM-based robotics, coding, and IoT institute RoboFun Lab. Being one of the pioneers of STEM education in India, he has taught over 3,000 students and trained 200+ educators thus far. He has trained 100+ teams for prestigious STEM competitions with 50+ national and 12+ international awards in the bag. Most of his students are now pursuing careers/education in STEM at prominent universities. Ashwin was a state-level badminton player during his college days.

Anita Kumari is a STEM and robotics educator with 13+ years' experience in schooling students. Her major interests are LEGO robotics, STEM, coding, and Arduino. Born and raised in the beautiful Kullu valley of Himachal Pradesh, she studied electronics and communication engineering at the Govt. Polytechnic College, Kandaghat, HP. Working in both the trainer and STEM content development roles has given her broad experience of writing content for school children that is engaging and exciting at the same time.

I'd like to thank my parents, siblings, relatives, friends, and mentors for guiding and supporting me. I greatly appreciate my in-laws, thank you for always being supportive and adjusting to my odd routines.

To my daughter, Sunanda: Even at the age of 8 years, you never trouble me while I am working. I'd also like to thank Packt Publishing for the opportunity to review this wonderful book.