Maxpat
my then 5yr old loved programming and building robots. But they still love the LEGO engineering kits. THey still love playing w/ pulleys and gears and building machines etc. But you know your DD so go w/ your gut.
The engineering kit does come with a motor. Personally I wouldn't buy it w/ out the motor. There are two kits for most of them, one w/ the motor and one w/out.
Regardubg RCXvsNXT. RCX is the old system. Some people still buy it but I wouldn't. There is no support for it and no upgrades to the software. NXT-G is the software which comes w/ the NXT. It based on the Labview platform. Most start w/ NXT-G and if needed, move on to something else such as RoboLab or Labview or any of the other programming languages. I know some view NXT-G as limiting but there are some guys like Jim and XXX (forgot his name) who do some amazing programming in NXT-G. It just takes learning it and figuring out work arounds.
There are 2 software options for NXT-G. The education version and the retail version. The retail version doesn't have the data logging capabilities and real-time graphing that the education version has. I own both programs. My son wrote a great program to measure temperature in old NXT-G but it's really nice to have all the data logging done for you and see the data acquired in real time. I think it was great for him to program the data acquisition from scratch to see what's happening behind the curtains but after that, for quick and easy data acquistion, I like the education version. The retail version though comes with the instructions for building cool robot models.
Then there are two kits. THe retail kit and the education version kit. The sensors are a bit different. AND then there is a new version of the retail kit with zamor shooters, tracks, and other cool things.
Dazey
