Description:

In this webcast you'll meet the authors of Make: Lego and Arduino Projects - Building Robots with Bricks, Sensors, and Micro-controllers. Hacking Mindstorms hadn't been done much before, and this book helped pave the way for a bunch of cool projects as well as commercial products like the PiStorms, which interfaces Lego with Raspberry Pi's. Mindstorms users build add-on electronics like sensors and motors, and create 3D-printed bricks and metal beams with Lego-compatible mounting holes. All of these together comprise an "ecosystem" of tools and techniques that ramp up from simple to nigh-professional. This ecosystem has become a serious resource for building real stuff—not just maker projects but actual commercial products. It's also great for education because it transitions seamlessly from the simplest Lego to full blown FIRST-level robotics.

In this webcast the authors will discuss this Lego ecosystem, and will detail some recent projects that came out of the book.

About John Baichtal

John Baichtal has written or edited over a dozen books, including the award-winning Cult of Lego (2011 No Starch Press), LEGO hacker bible Make: LEGO and Arduino Projects (2012 Maker Media) with Adam Wolf and Matthew Beckler, Robot Builder (Que 2014) and Basic Robot Building with LEGO Mindstorms NXT 2.0 (Que 2012), as well as Building Your Own Drones (forthcoming from Que). His most recent book is Maker Pro (Maker Media 2014), a collection of essays and interviews describing life as a professional maker. John lives in Minneapolis with his wife and three children.

Email: nerdyjb@gmail.com
Twitter: @johnbaichtal

About Matthew Beckler

Matthew Beckler is a co-founder of Wayne and Layne, LLC, where he makes open source hardware. I graduated from the University of Minnesota in May 2008, with a BS in Computer Engineering. I then spent way too long at Carnegie Mellon University getting a MS and most of a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering. I make open source electronics and do help other people build excellent things.

Website: https://www.wayneandlayne.com/
Twitter: @mbeckler

About Adam Wolf

Open source electronics hacker (@wayneandlayne), improv enthusiast, author/contributor (Maker Pro, Make: LEGO and Arduino Projects)

Twitter: @adamwwolf