Begin with the basics as you build and program a simple robot to experiment with motors, sensors, and EV3 programming. Then you’ll move on to a series of increasingly sophisticated robots that will show you how to work with advanced programming techniques like data wires, variables, and custom-made programming blocks. You’ll also learn essential building techniques like how to use beams, gears, and connector blocks effectively in your own designs.

Master the possibilities of the EV3 set as you build and program:

• The EXPLOR3R, a wheeled vehicle that uses sensors to navigate around a room and follow lines
• The FORMULA EV3 RACE CAR, a streamlined remote-controlled race car
• ANTY, a six-legged walking creature that adapts its behavior to its surroundings
• SK3TCHBOT, a robot that lets you play games on the EV3 screen
• The SNATCH3R, a robotic arm that can autonomously find, grab, lift, and move the infrared beacon
• LAVA R3X, a humanoid robot that walks and talks

More than 150 building and programming challenges throughout encourage you to think creatively and apply what you’ve learned to invent your own robots. With The LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Discovery Book as your guide, you’ll be building your own out-of-this-world creations in no time!

Requirements: One LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 set (LEGO SET #31313)

Scratch, the colorful drag-and-drop programming language, is used by millions of first-time learners, and in Scratch Programming Playground, you’ll learn to program by making cool games. Get ready to destroy asteroids, shoot hoops, and slice and dice fruit!

Each game includes easy-to-follow instructions, review questions, and creative coding challenges to make the game your own. Want to add more levels or a cheat code? No problem, just write some code.

You’ll make games like:

• Maze Runner: escape the maze!
• Snaaaaaake: gobble apples and avoid your own tail
• Asteroid Breaker: smash space rocks
• Fruit Slicer: a Fruit Ninja clone
• Brick Breaker: a remake of Breakout, the brick-breaking classic
• Platformer: a game inspired by Super Mario Bros.

Learning how to program shouldn’t be dry and dreary. With Scratch Programming Playground, you’ll make a game of it!

JavaScript is the programming language of the Internet, the secret sauce that makes the Web awesome, your favorite sites interactive, and online games fun!

JavaScript for Kids is a lighthearted introduction that teaches programming essentials through patient, step-by-step examples paired with funny illustrations. You’ll begin with the basics, like working with strings, arrays, and loops, and then move on to more advanced topics, like building interactivity with jQuery and drawing graphics with Canvas.

Along the way, you’ll write games such as Find the Buried Treasure, Hangman, and Snake. You’ll also learn how to:

• Create functions to organize and reuse your code
• Write and modify HTML to create dynamic web pages
• Use the DOM and jQuery to make your web pages react to user input
• Use the Canvas element to draw and animate graphics
• Program real user-controlled games with collision detection and score keeping

With visual examples like bouncing balls, animated bees, and racing cars, you can really see what you’re programming. Each chapter builds on the last, and programming challenges at the end of each chapter will stretch your brain and inspire your own amazing programs. Make something cool with JavaScript today!

Ages 10+ (and their parents!)

Want to introduce kids to coding in a fun and creative way?

With the Scratch Coding Cards, kids learn to code as they create interactive games, stories, music, and animations. The short-and-simple activities provide an inviting entry point into Scratch, the graphical programming language used by millions of kids around the world.

Kids can use this colorful 75-card deck to create a variety of interactive programming projects. They’ll create their own version of Pong, Write an Interactive Story, Create a Virtual Pet, Play Hide and Seek, and more!

Each card features step-by-step instructions for beginners to start coding with Scratch. The front of the card shows an activity kids can do with Scratch–like animating a character or keeping score in a game. The back shows how to put together code blocks to make the projects come to life! Along the way, kids learn key coding concepts, such as sequencing, conditionals, and variables.

This collection of coding activity cards is perfect for sharing among small groups in homes and schools.

Whether you’re interested in becoming a handyman or developing artisanal woodworking skills, the place to begin is by learning the fundamentals of using basic workshop tools correctly. The place to find out how is right here. Make: Tools is shop class in a book.

Consumer-level 3D printers and CNC machines are opening up new possibilities for makers. But there will always be a need for traditional workshop skills and tools. Charles Platt’s Make: Tools applies the same approach to its subject matter as his bestselling Make: Electronics — in-depth explanations and hands-on projects that gradually increase in level of challenge.

Illustrated in full color with hundreds of photographs and line drawings, the book serves as a perfect introduction to workshop tools and materials for young adults and adults alike. Platt focuses on basic hands tools and assumes no prior experience or knowledge on the part of the reader. The projects all result in fun games, toys, and puzzles. The book serves as both a hands-on tutorial a reference that will be returned to again and again.

Teach Your Kids to Code is a parent’s and teacher’s guide to teaching kids basic programming and problem solving using Python, the powerful language used in college courses and by tech companies like Google and IBM.

Step-by-step explanations will have kids learning computational thinking right away, while visual and game-oriented examples hold their attention. Friendly introductions to fundamental programming concepts such as variables, loops, and functions will help even the youngest programmers build the skills they need to make their own cool games and applications.

Whether you’ve been coding for years or have never programmed anything at all, Teach Your Kids to Code will help you show your young programmer how to:

• Explore geometry by drawing colorful shapes with Turtle graphics
• Write programs to encode and decode messages, play Rock-Paper-Scissors, and calculate how tall someone is in Ping-Pong balls
• Create fun, playable games like War, Yahtzee, and Pong
• Add interactivity, animation, and sound to their apps

Teach Your Kids to Code is the perfect companion to any introductory programming class or after-school meet-up, or simply your educational efforts at home. Spend some fun, productive afternoons at the computer with your kids—you can all learn something!

Scratch is the wildly popular educational programming language used by millions of first-time learners in classrooms and homes worldwide. By dragging together colorful blocks of code, kids can learn computer programming concepts and make cool games and animations. The latest version, Scratch 2, brings the language right into your web browser, with no need to download software.

In Super Scratch Programming Adventure!, kids learn programming fundamentals as they make their very own playable video games. They’ll create projects inspired by classic arcade games that can be programmed (and played!) in an afternoon. Patient, step-by-step explanations of the code and fun programming challenges will have kids creating their own games in no time.

This full-color comic book makes programming concepts like variables, flow control, and subroutines effortless to absorb. Packed with ideas for games that kids will be proud to show off, Super Scratch Programming Adventure! is the perfect first step for the budding programmer.

For Ages 8 and Up

Now Updated for Scratch 2

The LEGO® Technic Idea Book: Fantastic Contraptions is a collection of hundreds of working examples of simple yet fascinating Technic models that you can build based on their pictures alone. Each project uses color-coded pieces and is photographed from multiple angles, making it easy to see how the models are assembled without the need for step-by-step instructions. Every model illustrates a different principle, concept, or mechanism that will inspire your own original creations. You’re encouraged to use these elements as building blocks to create your own masterpieces.

The Technic models in Fantastic Contraptions include working catapults, crawling spiders, and bipedal walkers, as well as gadgets powered by fans, propellers, springs, magnets, and vibration. You’ll even learn how to add lights, pneumatics, and solar panels to your own models.

This visual guide, the third in the three-volume LEGO Technic Idea Book series, is the brainchild of master builder Yoshihito Isogawa of Tokyo, Japan. Each title is filled with photos of Isogawa’s unique models, all of which are designed to fire the imaginations of LEGO builders young and old.

Imagine. Create. Invent. Now, what will you build?

NOTE: The LEGO Technic Idea Book series uses parts from various Technic sets. If you don’t have some of the pieces shown in a particular model, experiment by substituting your own parts or visit the No Starch Press website for a list of the special parts used in the book.

The LEGO® Technic Idea Book: Wheeled Wonders is a collection of hundreds of mechanisms for cars, trucks, motorcycles, and other vehicles that you can build based on their pictures alone. Each project uses color-coded pieces and is photographed from multiple angles, making it easy to see how the models are assembled without the need for step-by-step instructions. Every model illustrates a different principle, concept, or mechanism that will inspire your own original creations. You’re encouraged to use these elements as building blocks to create your own masterpieces.

The Technic models in Wheeled Wonders spin or move things, drag race, haul heavy gear, bump off walls, wind up and go, and much more. You’ll discover how to build differential gears, implement steering and suspension, and design clutch and transmission systems to use in your own vehicles.

This visual guide, the second in the three-volume LEGO Technic Idea Book series, is the brainchild of master builder Yoshihito Isogawa of Tokyo, Japan. Each title is filled with photos of Isogawa’s unique models, all of which are designed to fire the imaginations of LEGO builders young and old.

Imagine. Create. Invent. Now, what will you build?

NOTE: The LEGO Technic Idea Book series uses parts from various Technic sets. If you don’t have some of the pieces shown in a particular model, experiment by substituting your own parts or visit the No Starch Press website for a list of the special parts used in the book.

Beginning with the basics and moving gradually to greater challenges, this book takes you step-by-step through experiments and projects that show you how to make your Arduino or Raspberry Pi create and control movement, light, and sound. In other words: action!

The Arduino is a simple microcontroller with an easy-to-learn programming environment, while the Raspberry Pi is a tiny Linux-based computer. This book clearly explains the differences between the Arduino and Raspberry Pi, when to use them, and to which purposes each are best suited.

Using these widely available and inexpensive platforms, you’ll learn to control LEDs, motors of various types, solenoids, AC (alternating current) devices, heaters, coolers, displays, and sound. You’ll even discover how to monitor and control these devices over the Internet. Working with solderless breadboards, you’ll get up and running quickly, learning how to make projects that are as fun as they are informative. In Make: Action, you’ll learn to:

• Build a can crusher using a linear actuator with your Arduino
• Have an Arduino water your plants
• Build a personal traffic signal using LEDs
• Make a random balloon popper with Arduino
• Cool down your beverages with a thermostatic drink cooler you build yourself
• Understand and use the PID control algorithm
• Use Raspberry Pi to create a puppet dance party that moves to your tweets!

The LEGO® Technic system opens a new realm of building possibilities. Using motors, gears, pneumatics, pulleys, linkages, and more, you can design LEGO models that really move.

The Unofficial LEGO Technic Builder’s Guide is filled with building tips for creating strong yet elegant machines and mechanisms with the Technic system. Author Pawel “Sariel” Kmiec will teach you the foundations of LEGO Technic building, from simple machines to advanced mechanics, even explaining how to create realistic to-scale models. Sariel, a world-renowned LEGO Technic expert, offers unique insight into mechanical principles like torque, power translation, and gear ratios, all using Technic bricks. You’ll learn how to:

• Create sturdy connections that can withstand serious stress
• Re-create specialized LEGO pieces like casings and u-joints, and build solutions like Schmidt and Oldham couplings, when no standard piece will do
• Build custom differentials, suspensions, transmissions, and steering systems
• Pick the right motor for the job—and transform its properties to suit your needs
• Combine studfull and studless building styles for a stunning look
• Create remote-controlled vehicles, lighting systems, motorized compressors, and pneumatic engines

This beautifully illustrated, full-color book will inspire you with ideas for building amazing machines like tanks with suspended treads, supercars, cranes, bulldozers, and much more. Your Technic adventure starts now!

Summary

This easy-to-follow book includes terrific tutorials and plenty of exercises and examples that let you learn by doing. It starts by giving you a hands-on orientation to the TI-84 Plus calculator. Then, you’ll start exploring key features while you tackle problems just like the ones you’ll see in your math and science classes.

Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications.

About this Book

With so many features and functions, the TI-84 Plus graphing calculator can be a little intimidating. But fear not if you have this book in your hand! In it you’ll find terrific tutorials ranging from mastering basic skills to advanced graphing and calculation techniques, along with countless examples and exercises that let you learn by doing.

Using the TI-84 Plus, Second Edition starts by making you comfortable with the screens, buttons, and special vocabulary you’ll use every time you fire up the TI-84 Plus. Then, you’ll master key features and techniques while you tackle problems just like the ones you’ll see in your math and science classes. You’ll even get tips for using the TI-84 Plus on the SAT and ACT math sections!

No advanced knowledge of math or science is required.

What’s Inside

• Learn hands-on with real examples and exercises
• Find specific answers fast
• Compliant with all models of the TI-83 Plus and TI-84 Plus
• Full coverage of the color-screen TI-84 Plus CE and TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition

Christopher Mitchell, PhD. is a research scientist studying distributed systems, the founder of the programming and calculator support site cemetech.net, and the author of Manning’s Programming the TI-83 Plus/ TI-84 Plus.

Table of Contents

PART 1 BASICS AND ALGEBRA ON THE TI-84 PLUS

1. What can your calculator do?
2. Get started with your calculator
3. Basic graphing
4. Variables, matrices, and lists

PART 2 PRECALCULUS AND CALCULUS

5. Expanding your graphing skills
6. Precalculus and your calculator
7. Calculus on the TI-83 Plus/TI-84 Plus

PART 3 STATISTICS, PROBABILITY, AND FINANCE

8. Calculating and plotting statistics
9. Working with probability and distributions
10. Financial tools

PART 4 GOING FURTHER WITH THE TI-83 PLUS/TI-84 PLUS

11. Turbocharging math with programming
12. The TI-84 Plus CE and TI-84 Plus C Silver Edition
13. Now what?