NXT Building Instructions for sale
Mirik emailed me a link to his new website - he's selling PDF files containing building instructions for his robots. The designs look interesting and at $5US each, some readers might want to check them out.
After the RIF thing, I've been a little hesitant to write about these kinds of products. We may see how reactions go before posting any other services like this one. So, if anyone wants to take a look and write a review, please let us know (and keep comments polite, please).
After the RIF thing, I've been a little hesitant to write about these kinds of products. We may see how reactions go before posting any other services like this one. So, if anyone wants to take a look and write a review, please let us know (and keep comments polite, please).
Comments
Nope... not endorsing. Just providing as NXT news that you can use or ignore :)
We walk a fine line with our blog - yes, many of us (myself included) talk about our books, but these are personal projects.
As a rule, The NXT Step is a news and information source, so we do not put up banners and advertisements and such - I think some of us talked at one time about setting up an e-commerce link to possibly sell some of our personal projects, but in the end we decided not to do it.
Mirik's has every right to try and sell his stuff and we are only letting readers know about NXT sites out there... again, you can buy or not. Your call.
(And we occasionally get "sellers" wanting to join us as contributors so they can promote their stuff - happens a LOT! A polite "no thanks" is usually enough to send them on their way. This hasn't happened so much with NXT stuff, but with general robotics type companies and such.)
Any links? Besides the few at the Lego site, all I can find are robots with 3 or 4 close-up pics.
"there are plenty of building plans around for free"
Where? I'd like for him to back up his statement.
Kind Regards,
Mike
Of course there are many of building plans. You know that.
Matthias Paul Scholz has a nice amount of them. Philippe Hurbain has a few. Too much to mention.
I can also tell you that we (from the official Mindstorms message boards) are working on a website like this, which is free.
These models that we share can be built from the NXT retail set, and include step by step building instructions.
At nxtlog you see thousands of projects. Yet few with programs. So far Brians repository at brickshelf is the best place to view snippets of programming examples. In that case a picture is worth a thousand words.
Studdless building has made building require alot more parts, small parts. it also makes the builder have to think in a 3d way of construction if it is to be durable. this has made building instructions longer and more complex to render.
If Mirik can make a buck selling plans to those that need help and inspiration it is what the USA is made of, free enterprise. As for Nxtstep to blog it, well its a blog. It is for them to put what they feel on here. You will never please everyone, why try.
regards,
Doc
Easy. Because a book isn't just building plans. I have a few Mindstorms books and they have programs and discussions and stuff that I can't find in other places. As a teacher, a book gives me a more for my money than just building plans.
These models that we share can be built from the NXT retail set, and include step by step building instructions.
Do you have any links?
Thanks
I have zero issue with promoting my book or any of the other contributor's books on our blog because the blog came first - the books were just secondary items that came along. I started the blog as a way for me to keep track of all the NXT stuff that I knew would be popping up... it kinda got out of control :)
Yes, we make some money selling our books and talking about them on the blog... them's the breaks. What we don't do is invite people as contributors who are looking to just sell their stuff and not provide for the community. I think most people would agree that nxtstep and nxtasy are about providing information, not selling stuff.
I have NO PROBLEM with people trying to sell what they want - as Doc222 said, "free enterprise" is great.
I'm not taking sides on this particular website because it's not important. Mirik contacted me, I looked his stuff over and decided that it was worth sharing with the community. I'm not saying buy from him... I'm not saying boycott him. He's selling a product and the market will decide whether it works or not.
I'm sorry but I can't accept that explanation. I'm sure if someone produced something (to your satisification) , published it on the web and charged for it... there would be plenty of people complaining.
I think there is a double standard applied to the web when it comes to charging money.
The site is, I believe, as Mirik want it to be. His site, his choice.
If somebody wants to pay for building instructions instead of spending time searching for them, fine by me.
If somebody pays for building instructions and afterwards find some that´s free and feel bad about they used money for some, I hope they THINK about it and learned a lesson instead of complaining; You´ll get a good start by Googling "mindstorms instructions"..!
I don´t understand why it´s a problem that some people is charging for something they publish on the net.
If you dosn´t want to pay for it, then don´t. Why complain..?
The instructions that I´ve made so far is for free, like all I make in the future will be.
I´m extremely glad many others have the same opinion about the instructions they spend time making, that they shall bee free for all to use and in that way share ideas, knoweledge and inspiration, but if someone wnat to try and get a few bucks for it.. Fine by me. I will niether pay or complain.
You made money on a book? Well I suppose I was paid for my little literary foray too. But given the time it took me to master the CAD software, get LPUB to work (this was back in its buggy youth, it's a great piece of software now), and several rewrites (my editor kept trying to push down the page count) I may have made about 2 cents an hour. In the end I decided that writing C is a much easier way to make a living than writing English.
I too am interested in a forum for distributing instructions. I've built up a significant collection of them over the years to teach FLL coaches how to build LEGO. I'm willing to share, but not interested in establishing and maintaining a web presence. I'm such a Luddite that this blog thing is almost beyond my comfort zone.
I didn't say I made a *LOT* of money...
When you write for a living, you learn to either WRITE FASTER or WRITE LESS (or both!) - tech books usually won't make you rich :)
Personally, I've no problem with people charging for a product, even if that product happens to be just a specific patterning of electrons. I do think a double-standard exists as well: people seem to think that "the internet is free", and get upset when they have to pay for something they already believe they "should have for free". Do I think they're wrong? Yep... but that doesn't change their perception. Personally (see below), for me this is something I *like* sharing...
As to plans on the web, well, you just have to look. For instance, LegoEdwest has some nice stuff up for instructors:
http://www.legoedwest.com/page.php?19
Then there are folks like me who can't seem to grasp LCAD tools, but can handle a camera:
DAZLR: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=203386
LNE: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=229082
Remote control: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=203384
And some NXT-G code snippets that 222Doc mentioned: http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=191310
Understand, these are just the ones I already know about off the top of my head - since I really don't look for plans very often, I'm sure there's a *LOT* more out there. I'll be trying to put up some stuff at LEGO Engineering soon I hope as well, and I've seen plans published in things like BrickJournal and Servo magazine. Others? There *are* some semi-detailed plans on NXTlog, but I'll admit they tend to be hard to find right now.
--
Brian Davis
Yep, we have the choice to buy or not, sale or not, look or look away...
If anyone wants to pay a buck to learn, I say go for it. If anyone wants to try to make a buck, I say go for it. If people choose to ignore or voice an opinion, I say go for it. But, in the end we need to understand something...we have choices which are our own and no one else's. If we could only walk a mile in each other’s shoes we would have a greater understanding of our community as a whole.
As for Sharing... I think it is the absolute most fantastic thing that could happen to improve and build our community. You know, learn from other’s mistakes or achievements. However, creating precise building instructions is very difficult, time consuming, and something that should be respected! I have seen too many times that something is recreated verbatim only to be given a different name and called one's own without giving any credit to the original creator. This hurts us all. How? People begin to become closed to sharing. Learning drops off and we head into an awful downward spiral.
I started the download section in the old Official LEGO MindStorms Forums called the "CAD Depot" which contained about a 100 wonderful LEGO Robotic inventions gratefully donated by many different people for others to learn from. To curate this depository was almost a fulltime job! However, in the end it provided visitors with a wealth of building knowledge unparalleled on the internet through the 1990's. I still have all of the contributions, some of which were never posted for download since the prep queue was quite long. Those CAD files were created with MLCad and of the RCX era...but, the collection was fun to present even if hardly anyone said "thanks".
I believe it was Abraham Lincoln that said… “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
I twisted this years ago in a fine way to nail this example towards communities…You can please all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot please all of the people all of the time.
Yep...Them's the breaks. No sir! I don’t like it either…but it’s the world we live in.
Love'em or leave'em. But, try not to bring everyone down in the process.
Chris
PS – See me if you would like a Shuttle ride off the planet Earth.
It's for the individual to choose whether they want to purchase or not, but it's good for all of us to know what's out there.
Thanks.
--
Brian "NXT... in... Spaaaaaccceee..." Davis
I also like your idea about walking a mile in each other's shoes. I always do say: Before criticizing someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you'll be a mile away and have their shoes. :-)
Ok, that was a joke... :)
-Jonathan
Guy Ziv
NXTasy.org
Guy Ziv
NXTasy.org
Most of you know my site (www.plastibots.com) - everything there is free. However I have put hundreds of hours into it (yes, I love building LEGO, but I also want others to learn from my ideas) If I decide to spend countless hours creating building instructions and throw them up there for $5 a pop, you may or may not be interested - that is your decision.
I used to work in retail - when I had customers who were so intent on beating me down to the point of wasting my time AND not making a product - I had one question for them "Since when was it illegal to make a profit?"
..and for the record, I have free building instructions for DominoBot on my site. However, I have pondered the idea of selling others.
..and for the record #2 - I would gladly pay a small fee for John Hansens work on NXC /BricxCC (already donated once) as well as the work that Ralph Hempel is doing on PBLua... However, the choose (for now) to offer their work for free.
Dave Astolfo