This book review has taken me longer than usual. I have had a copy of this book for a while now, but I literally just finished it. The reason is not what you might expect. To put it simply, I got caught up in the book. I cant recommend this book enough. Laurens Valk did it again!
The LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Discovery Book is an essential book for both new and old MINDSTORMS builder alike! First off, the print quality off the book is excellent and this is key. As I spent hours building and referencing the diagrams in the book, it was helpful to have full color and high resolution images. As any LEGO builder knows, some parts are hard to see and the high quality images, coupled with Laurens’s excellent building instructions made constructing each bot a breeze.
If you have read any of Laurens’s other books, some of the bots might seem familiar. (SNATCH3R for example) EV3 is an awesome new platform and seeing the bots upgraded to take advantage of all the updates. Laurens has bots for everyone, from cars to bugs. Each bot is an extreme joy to construct and program. The book provides excellent programming instructions to get you started, but like any LEGO set, the true excitement comes from building on that idea. For each bot, there were countless moments of “oh I bet I could made it do that!”. For example, I added a marker and had it drawing shapes on the floor (and then had SNATCH3R following the line!).
For the seasoned LEGO MINDSTORMS Builder, there are excellent diagram on showing how to build with Technic. This would be super useful for teachers and FIRST LEGO League students. One of the most innovative things Laurens presents is the use of graph paper with LEGO. As you can see in the image left, the grid really works well for figuring out angles and layout bot designs. This makes building complex mechanical designs or even super large robots significantly easier. Laurens uses this technique for more than just triangles, but you will need to get the book to see those!
In case it wasn’t clear by this point, I have really enjoyed this book. The book is a few hundred pages of LEGO MINDSTORMS awesome. I have been building robots with LEGO MINDSTORMS for well over a decade and a half and yet I still learned new techniques from The LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Discovery Book. I cannot recommend this book enough. Every LEGO MINDSTORMS builder will find something they enjoy in this book. Don’t be surprised if you spend countless hours building, programming, and playing. It is an excellent reference that I am sure you will be visiting multiple times. In fact, this book hasn’t made it to my shelf yet. I think it might have a permanent home on my desk. Play well!
Milluzzi Labs 