What’s in the Box? http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lego_Mindstorms_kit.jpg

Before you start building, you need to know more about the LEGO pieces These are the LEGO beams that you will use to build your robot. We measure in LEGO units; for these beams, the number of holes in the beam is the number of LEGO units. The white beam has 15 spaces so we call it a 15L beam (some books call it 15M). The smallest beam has 3 spaces, so we call it a 3L beam. Beams

Pegs These are connector pegs. You use them to hold the other parts together, to build a robot. The shorter ones have a length of 2, the longer ones have a length of 3. There are also gray pegs of length 2. The black pegs have little ridges, that add friction, so they stick tight. The gray pegs do not have ridges, so they rotate more freely. You can use the gray pegs as axles. Pegs

Pegs with bushing These are length 2 pegs, but with a bushing attached to one end, so that you can attach the axle to that end. These come in gray and black – the black again have friction, and the gray don’t. Pegs with axle bushing

Blocks Blocks You can use ordinary LEGO blocks on your robot as well. You name the blocks according to the number of studs on the block. The red block is a 2 by 4 block. The gray block is a 2 by 6 block. The longest yellow block is a 1 by 6 block. Name the last two blocks in this picture. That’s right, they are 1 x 4 and 1 x 2 blocks. Strangely, each LEGO block is 1.2 LEGO units high. This will be important when you build things with these blocks. Blocks

Plates These thin pieces are called plates. Each plate is 1/3 of the height of a block. The plates are named the same way as the blocks. The blue plate is a 6 x 8 plate, the green is a 2 x 8 plate, and the red one is a 4 x 4 plate. Some plates are smooth on one side. Plates

Pegs with axle ends You can see that these pieces have one end that is an ordinary connector peg, but the other end is an axle. They are very useful, because angle beams and some flat beams have axle holes as well as round holes. The blue color means that these pieces have friction ridges, so will stick tight, but the beige one do not, and will be able to turn. Pegs with axle ends

Axle peg These connector pegs are only 2 LEGO units long, and have an axle connector on each end

Connector peg with towball You can use the ball on the end of this peg as a way to stop a moving part on a robot from going too far. If you want to stop a robot attachment from flapping around, you can insert one of these pegs on each side, and loop a rubber band around them holding the attachment in place.

Half pegs These are half connector pegs. You can use this to turn a hole into a beam into an old-fashioned LEGO stud, by putting the pin side into the hole – you can see that there will be a small stud sticking out.

Beams and plates with studs These beams have a square cross-section, and on the sides, you can see LEGO studs. The plates next to them also have holes and studs. You could use the half pegs with studs from the last slide to make studs on another side of one of these beams, if you needed to. You will find these beams with studs very useful for building your robot.

Bushings These gray pieces are called bushings, and the shorter yellow pieces are half bushings. You will use these at the ends of axles to make then secure. Make sure that you use bushings appropriately when adding wheels to your robots, as that can help to make a more stable robot.

Axles These are the axles, and they all have a cross-shaped cross-section. We measure axles in terms of LEGO units, just like the beams. If you look at the white beam next to the axles, you can see that the longest axle shown here is 12 units long, and the shortest black one is 4 units long. How long do you think the shortest gray axle is? That’s right, it is three units long.

Pause……… There are many more parts to find out about, but we don’t want to scramble your brains, so we’ll stop here. Onward and upward! http://kidindependent.com/2011/03/print-your-own-groucho-marx-mask/ image on slide 11