OT Lego NXT Robots

My sons birthday is comming up and he has mentioned the Lego robots. I was actualy thinking about these already when spied on e-bay.

Anyone out there have any direct experiance with these? I hunted down reviews off the web and see that the kids seem to enjoy it, but the techno geeks thought it was lacking in memory (256k).

I have not seen one of these up close and have not been able to find a web video that works. I see another robot system out there called bo-bots, but looks a bit too technical for a 10 yr old.

I'm hoping for something that will keep him captivated like that nintendo thing. I'm sure I'll find some enjoyment in it but do not want to invest in a piece of junk that only walks in circles.

http://mindstorms.lego.com/Overview/

Luke

The mindstorms are areally neat. People have hacked the heck out of them. Check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ3AcPEPbH0&eurl=

That.
Was.
Wonderful.

I would have KILLED to have something like that when I was a little shaver.

So who is it for, your son or the techno geeks? If he likes the Lego, then what the heck. If you get him something too complicated, he may loose interest. You can always get him a better version when he outgrows the first one. You don't even have to wait till Christmas.

And here I thought my parents were neglecting me because they wouldn't buy us the lego trains!

I know I'm projecting a bit, based on what I would have wanted, but I'm sure your kid will be happy. And you can eventually go to your grave knowing that you at least tried to turn him into an interesting and smart person.

Lego robotics stuff is awesome. Get one. It's a bit complex for a 10 year old, but if you can spend the time with him to complete some projects he will love it. And it also is a brilliant tool from which to learn some basic automation skills. They are also expandable and of course use standard lego blocks and stuff he may already have.
I bought my nephew the original mindstorms kit several years ago and he still uses it now that he's in colledge.

Buy one of the many books available of projets to build. Kids don't have the experience to come up with projects on their own and he will surely find something cool in a book and want to make it. The programming software is also very easy to use.

A few neat models here:

http://jpbrown.i8.com

I would urge you to get one. It will last for years, and provide a huge amount of education. If he goes on to a career in a mechanical or automation field, what he learns about motors, sensors, gears etc. is very valuable.
There is a few books on the mindstorms site, along with some neat robots.

http://mindstorms.lego.com/Books/

Look on the web for NXT & Mindstorms sites and also check out Youtube to get an idea of what people have created.

I wish I had that sruff when I was a kid. All I had was capsella and erector-set. And by the time I got my erector sets they were going downhill fast. ended up buying old sets at garage sales... Who knows how many of those nuts and screws were sucked up in the vacuum...

Now I wonder what I did with those sets...

Check our www.usfirst.org and see the lego league , and Vex competitions. (Under the what we do link)

If he already has Leggo's then adding the midstrom stuff makes sense.

You should look at the vex stuff (available from Radio Shack), it's more like an erector set, with computer and radio control.

In College we used Lego Mindstorm stuff for Mechatronics class. They did not allow us to use the simpler software for the programming, but we did get to build and program stuff. I don't think we had servo motors, but we did have motors and encoders, so we made servo motors. Then we programmed our own PID and logic controls to make autonomous vehicles whatnot. Lot of fun. Lot of good logic thinking exercises. We uses the C programming interface and some other one that was graphical..like LabView. Just place function boxes and connect then with wires. Pretty neat! We also made a scanner that scanned a grayscale image.

I had a mindstorms set about 6 years ago. Still sitting in the closet somewhere, along with countless other lego parts (they'd probably get used if I didn't have a machine shop). As a toy for teaching kids mechanical reasoning, it's great. To be honest, I hated the programming, and thought most of what could be done with it was lame. I ended up making three different programs, and just using those over and over again.

I had a pile of issues with legos (no torque for the motors, high friction in any gear-systems, too few motor/sensor interfaces, etc.) but they were certainly worth it.

You should certainly get your son one of these. Those people complaining about not enough memory are programmers who give a damn about the mechanical aspects of the robots. If your son's anything like me, he'll spend 10 minutes programming for every 10 hours doing mechanical work. And he'll constantly learn from it.

If your son does end up getting into making cars or other mechanical systems, two of the most useful things you can get him are some extra long wires, and some extra gear (not servo) motors. You can get around the lack of extra motor controls by stringing two motors together. One, the "steering wheel", plays generator, while the other drives the rack and pinion that steers your car. Works surprisingly well.