Using only the pieces in the LEGO BOOST Creative Toolbox (set #17101), this book shows how to make simple robots that will use the BOOST's three motors and various sensors to do everything from basic locomotion, to manipulate objects, and even react to stimuli, but what it doesn't do is give you the nitty gritty. It expects you to dissect what is depicted and figure out some of the nuts and bolts on your own. This backed off approach to teaching the reader not only allows the book to pack a massive number of builds into its pages (95 different models in total), but it also, I believe, gives the instruction a more long-lasting approach that should make the ideas behind the mechanics easier to understand as the builder has to work out some of the details themselves. To put it another way, presenting the step-by-step instructions showing where each gear should go is akin to "giving a man a fish," while presenting a picture of the completed mesh of gears forces the reader to figure it out and is closer to "teaching a man how to fish."
The lessons in The LEGO BOOST Idea Book fall under three categories, movement with the built-in A and B motors, using the detachable motor, and using the sensors and other peripherals that come with the LEGO BOOST kit. Each category is further broken down into sections that build on similar ideas. This could be anything from different ways to move (i.e. with wheels or with legs) to different ways to translate the spin of a motor in order to cause different types of actions. While many of the models are small and rudimentary, at the end of each lesson, Isogawa adds a few finishing touches to his builds in order to give the walking, spinning, or shooting thing a bit more personality, even though it doesn't have any actual bearing on the activity being taught. These are still LEGOs after all.
I cannot express enough the fact that The LEGO BOOST Idea Book doesn't give you step-by-step instructions. It will explain to the reader what the model is trying to achieve and present several pictures of the build completed, or only partially disassembled, in order to show how different pieces fit together and get the reader to try and replicate the design. Given that the only pieces used in this book are the ones that come with set #17101, it should be relatively easy to reproduce the designs presented in this book, and the mistakes and corrections that a reader will go through in order to make his or her build work will only help to solidify the examples and show why certain pieces need to fit where and how they do, in order to achieve the movement Isogawa is trying to illustrate.
Having gone through a couple of these instructions-via-LEGO books, I know that this is a subject that could easily get too detailed and become tedious as engineering ideas can get rather complex, but that isn't the case with The LEGO BOOST Idea Book and I highly recommend this book for any LEGO fan that has this set, or if there is a young potential engineer you are looking to get some gifts for, then this book is a great complement to the LEGO BOOST set itself.
