The LEGO Technic Idea Book: Fantastic Contraptions

A few years ago I downloaded a free pdf version of these books and sent in a donation. I'm glad to see them in print and I quickly snatched up the collection (very reasonably priced too!).If you've been into Legos for a number of years, especially in NXT robotics or the more advanced technics sets you might be staring at pile of weird Lego parts, gears, pins, cams and beams and wonder what can I do with all of this? Or you might be on a First Lego League team and be wondering how to get your Legos to do a certain thing like grab something or lift something.These beautiful books provide a treasure trove of examples of how the more advanced Lego pieces work together. Overall the Lego systems has zillions of parts available but often it seems to the Lego fan that only select engineers at Lego can actually understand what the purpose of certain parts. By studying the photos in this book one can come to some head slapping moments like "ohhh, that's a way to make a gear change direction".Of course the drawback of buying any third party book as opposed to buying a Lego kit is that of course you most likely won't have all of the pieces depicted in the book. But since the Lego system is so diverse you should be able to recreate what is shown in a different way or search Ebay or online Lego brick sellers for the piece you need.The educational applications of this series of books is vast. It takes one into the realm of simply machines and engineering. Its a great resource or encyclopedia for anyone doing Lego robotics or First Lego League.Thank you Yoshihito for sharing your Lego knowledge and your art!

I loved this book because many of the examples of LEGO builds were easy to replicate and fun to use after. I also find this book handy while building my own things.

Whats not to like, its cool legos!

Bear in mind that this book is almost entirely pictures. Very little writing at all. These are ideas, not instructions.

It's okay... a lot of the instructions include pieces that we don't even have, even though we have several sets of legos. I don't even know where to find some of the pieces that they have in this book.One of the other things that frustrated me is some of the ideas that we were able to copy were somewhat difficult because it doesn't show many angles, so you really have to use trial and error to figure out if you put something together correctly. Not the typical, easy to follow lego instructions.Other than that, it does spark ideas and creativity, so I do appreciate that.

I was totally stunned and overjoyed by the nearly pure visual nature of this work. I've enjoyed things like the Merriam-Webster's Visual Dictionary so when I read that this was a visual book I was expecting a lot of pictures, not all pictures. It is an excellent and beautiful example of visual communication. I can see anyone who has touched Technics being able to learn interesting possibilities from this regardless of their ability to speak any language. It is also a testament to the value of a physical book. While I could see value in seeing this via an e-book reader, the higher resolution of paper lets you appreciate the vivid beauty of the pictures even better. Kudos to O'Reilly and the author.

great book for my son age 12

Our kids are Lego blue ribbon winners from the county fair Lego contest and they still enjoyed this book. The kids have a giant collection of Legos so this was a much better choice than yet another set of bricks. Great book to learn to follow directions.