Since I brought it up under the Geometry Resources thread, and since others are talking about it elsewhere, I thought I'd start a whole new thread just for Lego Mindstorms...
I'm just about to buy the "retail" Mindstorms NXT kit (#8527, $244 at Amazon)... rather than the official FLL Mindstorms kit (#979792, $315 through FLL), mostly because between what we already own (bins and bins including a complete RCX kit from way back when) and the fact that our proposed team will have three NXT kits and one RCX among us, and plenty of extra parts, I'm thinking we can make up the difference on our own. I'm also ordering the NXT Zoo book as a fun summer introduction for the team, and I've already downloaded the "extra parts you need" list, which I think we've got covered..... I hope!
Anyway, what else would anyone suggest? I won't be able to keep myself from hitting "submit" for much longer, so talk fast!
Also on the Lego Engineering front, we did the "Elementary Engineering 1" curriculum using kit #9630 (Simple and Motorized Machines Set) with a group last fall and it was pretty fun... although DS has done simple machines with K'nex several times already, and there wasn't a lot more to it than that. I think the 2nd part ("Elementary Engineering 2") would be much more interesting, and probably doable for any kid who knew the simple machines already, without the first semester at all. It sounds like a different thing from what RPM9 was describing -- we had trebuchets, but no balloon cars (rubber band cars yes, but not balloon) and I don't see the carpet sweeper... So there might be another one or several out there!
