The ULMN Inventor’s Guide uses the retail version of the NXT set, known officially as LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT. However, there is also an educational version of the NXT set, known officially as the LEGO MINDSTORMS Education NXT Base Set (see below). Unfortunately, while the robots in my book can be built from the pieces in one retail NXT set, the educational NXT Base Set does not contain all the pieces necessary to build those same robots.
If you own the NXT Base Set and would still like to build the robots in The Inventor’s Guide, there is a solution. The Education Resource Set (shown below) is a $69.00 “expansion pack” of sorts for the NXT Base Set. This resource set includes nearly 700 pieces. By combining the pieces from the NXT Base Set and the Education Resource Set, you can successfully build all the robots in The Inventor’s Guide. To ensure this, I have checked the bill of materials for the robots in my book—Zippy-Bot through Golf-Bot—and compared it with the combined contents of the Resource Set and NXT Base Set.
I must mention that while you will have the correct type and sufficient quantity of pieces using the NXT Base Set and Resource Set, you will not have all the same colors of pieces as found in the retail version of the NXT set. But that definitely won’t stop the robots from working!
