Mario Ferrari received his first Lego box around 1964, when he was 4. Lego was his favorite toy for many years, until he thought he was too old to play with it. In 1998, the Lego Mindstorms RIS set gave him reason to again have Lego become his main addiction. Mario believes Lego is the closest thing to the perfect toy. He is Managing Director at EDIS, a leader in finishing and packaging solutions and promotional packaging. The advent of the MINDSTORMS product line represented for him the perfect opportunity to combine his interest in IT and robotics with his passion for LEGO bricks, which started during his early childhood. Mario has been a very active member of the online MINDSTORMS community from the beginning and has pushed LEGO robotics to its limits. Mario holds a bachelor's degree in Business Administration from the University of Turin and has always nourished a strong interest for physics, mathematics, and computer science. He is fluent in many programming languages and his background includes positions as an IT manager and as a project supervisor. Mario estimates he owns over 60,000 Lego pieces. Mario works in Modena, Italy, where he lives with his wife Anna and his children Sebastiano and Camilla.
John Brost had a passion for LEGO and all things mechanical at an early age. However, the interest waned, and like most adult LEGO fans, John went through his "dark ages in high school and while attending Purdue University. The release of the Star Wars LEGO sets brought a renewed interest in LEGO to John. But it was a chance encounter with an announcement of a LEGO Robotic Sumo competition being held locally that brought John back to LEGO 100 percent. It took only this event to get John hooked. Less than two weeks later, John had his first MINDSTORMS RIS kit, and he has been busily building robots and all sorts of mechanical LEGO contraptions ever since then.
John has participated in all types of MINDSTORMS competitions, winning a few here and there. He has also been a coach for LafLRC's (Lafayette LEGO Robotics Club) FIRST LEGO League team for the past five years. In 2006, John was lucky enough to become a member of the LEGO MINDSTORMS Developer Program to test the MINDSTORMS NXT. Currently, John is a moderator on LEGO's NXTlog Web site.
Rebeca Dunn-Krahn is a member of a working group at the University of Victoria dedicated to increasing awareness and understanding of computer science among children and young adults. She is currently producing a short documentary film about these outreach efforts that include free robotics festivals using LEGO MINDSTORMS. Rebeca has also worked in quality assurance and as a Java developer.
Rebeca holds a bachelor's degree in computer science and biochemistry from the University of Victoria and lives in Victoria, Canada, with her family.
Richard Li is one of two nonadult contributors to Building Robots with LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT. He is currently a seventh-grader at Beck Academy and heads two award-winning FIRST LEGO League (FFL) teams. They have been honored with the Champion's Award on several occasions and are ranked as two of the top teams yearly. When not working with his FLL teams, he experiments with his own robots at home. He would like to thank his parents, Lin and Liang-Hong, for buying him his LEGOs and dealing with him as he stayed up late several nights to meet his deadline for this book. Richard currently resides in Simpsonville, SC.
Christopher Dale Minamyer (Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, University of Arizona, 2007) began studying mechanical engineering during the fall of 2002 and graduated from the University of Arizona in May 2007. A lifelong LEGO fan, Chris has been building with LEGO for 20 years.
For the past four years Chris was an instructor of LEGO Robotics at Ventana Vista Elementary School in Tucson, AZ. During this time he instructed more than 300 students in grades one through five in LEGO MINDSTORMS RCX and NXT. In addition Chris is a founding member of the Tucson LEGO Club Masters Group and the head coach. Chris has been a FIRST LEGO League coach for the past four years. In that time the teams he coached have won the Robot Performance award (2004) and the Research Quality award (2005) for the state of Arizona. In addition Chris received the Adult coach/mentor award (2005) and the Appreciation award (2006).
Deepak Patil developed interest in LEGO robotics when the original LEGO MINDSTORMS kit was introduced in 1998. Since then Deepak has coached FLL teams and has conducted several robotics workshops with LEGO MINDSTORMS.
Deepak has a master's degree in Industrial Design from IIT Bombay and has designed user interfaces for diverse products, including programmable logic controllers, telephony software, and multimedia systems. Deepak has worked for Cisco and other leading technology companies, and he has led technology projects with globally interspersed teams of engineers.<
