Robots have been a source of fascination to me since my childhood. That was during the time of the first Star Wars trilogy, with very humanlike robots appearing on the screen, such as C-3PO, who still reminds me of some friends of mine, and not so humanlike others, such as R2-D2 (who nev- theless also reminds me of some people I know). There were the books of Stanislaw Lem and Douglas Adams that discuss the philosophical questions related to the creation of artificial beings. Do androids dream of electric sheep? I still wonder. Yet all my attempts to build something similar on my own failed. The gizmos I'd assembled from wood and plastic not only looked strangely different from the ones I had in mind, but also didn't do anything (besides fall apart frequently). The time was not ripe for building robots of your own, unless you had a degree in electronic engineering, high soldering capabilities, and a well-endowed bank account to acquire all the special electromechanical parts required. | Advanced NXT by Matthias Paul Scholz, Paperback | Indigo Chapters