When Fay Rhodes, co-author of The LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Idea Book and contributor to The NXT STEP blog, found that most NXT enthusiasts were interested in creating big, bad robots, she decided to change things.

“Everything seemed oriented toward adult techno-geeks and competition,” she said. “It seemed that little was being offered for parents and children who just wanted to have fun building robots. I saw the NXT as a great way to educate children about machines.”

Her answer came in the form of her new book, The LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Zoo!, which shows fans how to build animal-like robots. In preparing the models for the book, Rhodes observed animal movements and experimented with ways to recreate them with the NXT. The results are impressive: Ribbit the frog and Bunny the rabbit, both featured in the book, are the first hopping NXT robots ever created!

“Many of the models included in the NXT kit can be difficult for beginners to build,” said Rhodes. “The instructions for the Zoo models are simple and clear; they assume no previous experience.”

The LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Zoo! offers a simple introduction to the NXT kit, teaches readers how to program with the NXT-G language (including how to make miniprograms called My Blocks), and shows how to build and program nine robots that act like their real animal cousins, including:

• Ribbit, a jumping frog
• Bunny, a hopping rabbit
• Sandy, a walking camel
• Spiderbot, an eight-legged spider that avoids objects and walks forward and backward
• Snout, a walking alligator that opens and closes its jaws
• LEGOsaurus, a four-legged, plodding dinosaur
• Pygmy, a walking elephant that raises and lowers its head
• Polecat, a skunk on wheels that lifts its tail and shoots “darts”
• Strutter, a peacock on wheels that turns and flutters its tail feathers

Troubleshooting tips help with problems like misarranged gears and incorrect programming, and a list of Internet resources helps guide readers’ further exploration with the NXT. Teachers and home educators will appreciate an appendix with helpful suggestions for using the models in the classroom. The LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Zoo! continues the No Starch Press line of high-quality LEGO-oriented titles, and is sure to please young and old builders alike.