My DS9 took a free library 3 hrs a day, one week class this summer robotics and loved it.

I'm interested in getting into this more for him at home. I'm thinking about the lego mindware and some of the Lego educational Robotics. Anyone have ideas about what is good to get started with?

Northwestern has a robotics online class they will probally offer again next summer. I was thinking their set might be good to start and that might present more options being able to use it in their class. Has anyone taken Northwesterns lego robotics classes online?

I haven't tried that one, but there is a book called 'Forbidden Lego' that looks fun. Also, have you found
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIRST_Lego_League

BW - Grinity

thanks for the recommendation's.

My DS9 has read that book it is cool.

The Lego league looks cool but I want him to spend more time on sports because that a great link to him and kids. Sometimes he feels on the outside but not in sports. He is good at sports. I'm mostly interested in something for him to do at home with robotics. Or a summer camp.

For the books recommendation, I will need to ask DS9 when he is back from school. He is the one reading the books. The complains I heard from him so far are the hard-to-find pieces being used to build some of the projects. It can be disappointing and frustrating if you don't have a replacement piece in your current stash.

For a start, check out this website. The kids will build the project and download the program for it to work. Even though they don't write the program themselves, it is good to see how it is written to make it work. http://www.nxtprograms.com/index1.html

Here's a thread from some time ago on LEGO Mindstorms robotics. http://giftedissues.davidsongifted.org/BB/ubbthreads.php/topics/36427/1.html

If you have any other questions after reading that, let me know. Dottie has some experience w/ FLL. I do LEGO robotics at home with my kids. We own two of the NXT1.0 kits. LEGO just came out w/ a new kit, NXT2.0. I also own the LEGO Education NXT software as it contains the data logging software which the retail version of the software doesn't have. But the retail version has some cool plans for robots which the education version doesn't have.

There are so many good books out there. A good one is by Jim Kelly titled LEGO MINDSTORMS Mayan Adventure. he is about to come out w/ a 2nd book similar to this one. The robotics revolves around a story which is fun for the kids.

I 2nd and 3rd the NXTPrograms site! It is definitely our fortunate that Dave provides that free of charge!