Daniele Benedettelli

Daniele Benedettelli lives and works in beautiful Tuscany, Italy. While he was attending high school, his main passion was writing music and playing the piano. When he wasn't playing the piano, you could find him playing with LEGO.

In 2002, Danny scraped together enough money to purchase the LEGO MINDSTORMS Robotics Invention System. From that moment on, he began to think about building a career out of his love for LEGO!

In 2006, he was selected by The LEGO Company as a member of the MINDSTORMS Developer Program, and in 2007 he became a MINDSTORMS Community Partner (MCP). His EL3CTRIC GUITAR model is one of LEGO's twelve official bonus models that you can build with the LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Retail set 31313.

Danny’s other well-known robots include the Rubik’s Cube solver, which can independently solve any 3x3 Rubik's cube in less than a minute; LEGONARDO, a humanoid robot which can draw anything; and Cyclops, a mecha that can walk, talk, gesticulate, and can be even controlled with a suit worn by its human operator.

He is the author of several books: The LEGO MINDSTORMS Robot Inventor Activity Book (No Starch Press), The LEGO BOOST Activity Book (No Starch Press), The LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 Laboratory (No Starch Press), LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT Thinking Robots (No Starch Press), and Creating Cool MINDSTORMS NXT Robots (Apress). Danny holds an MSc degree in Robotics and Automation from the University of Siena.

Danny is currently working as a free-lance LEGO designer and as high school teacher.