Did you make the similar mistake?

My son loves Legos. To cultivate his engineering sense, I bought tons of different LEGO sets,

,

,

,

,

etc. However, the problem is when the set is built, it is "dead" and becomes a display.

Luckily, I met a renowned robotics educator

at my son's robotics camp and talked about this problem. He gave me a simple solution f

or kids age 7-10 before using

Practical LEGO Robot Kits = Isogawa's LEGO Idea Books + LEGO Education Sets





Isogawa's LEGO Idea Books

They are different from regular LEGO sets without step-by-step instruction images. In fact, Isogawa's Technic idea books only take 1 or 3 pictures of the assembled ones. Your kid needs some guess and try to duplicate them. Reverse-engineering is the next level of LEGO building for your kids.





fundamentals of Machine Elements: gears, shafts, pulleys, turntables, connectors, etc. Great intro book for LEGO

Simple Machines Set

and

Powered Machines Set 9686





a collection of hundreds of mechanisms for cars, trucks, motorcycles, and other vehicles. Extension of book 1. My son's favorite.

a collection of hundreds of working examples of simple models. Advanced book, but my son is not very big on this book.

showcases small projects to build with gears, motors, gadgets, and other moving elements. Again, a perfect book matches Sets

9686. Mr.Chen uses this classic book to teach his robotics classes.

One step forward - use basic knowledge from Book 1 to build cars.

Mr.Chen develops some of his robotics curriculum based on it.





LEGO Education Sets

LEGO Education Sets are very popular in STEM society. Numerous schools and camps have been using them for their robotics

curriculum.

Interestingly, Lego never openly advertises their Education Sets. In fact, you can not find any on their

.

Shrewd marketing strategy -

If they do so, the sales of other commercial packages ( Chima Star Wars , etc.) will be damaged.





Friendly reminder - Do NOT buy any LEGO Education Sets fro

m

Amazon sellers , much higher price than

.









Buy Parts

The above Lego Education sets do not cover all Technic parts needed in Isogawa's books, so you have to buy the missing ones online. Here is the website lists all

Technic

parts in his books, and you can buy them from

. I bought 2 motors and a few Technic pieces from

nk , good experience, fast shipping, accept paypal.

今天聊聊机器人。大家有没有遇到同样的问题？我儿子酷爱Lego， 为培养他的兴趣，我买了暴多的成品Lego。但问题是一旦搭好后，这套Lego就变成了摆设，又不能搭成别的。有幸的是，我碰到了休斯顿地区知名的机器人 指导老师