battlemaiden Posted October 22, 2009 Share Posted October 22, 2009 I have been to the website. I believe I need a minimal level of knowledge to understand even the home page. So, thus far I've determined 1) they are REALLY expensive and 2) I don't know where to start. I have 13 and 11 yo boys who haven't even remotely expressed an interest in them but they do love their regular lego brick stuff. I'm looking for Christmas. Someone WOW me. What are they about? Thanks. Jo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WTMCassandra Posted October 22, 2009 Share Posted October 22, 2009 It's a kit to build programmable robots. You connect the robot to a computer and write programs for it. They have a nice, icon-based programming language that's pretty easy to learn. There are lots of books on Amazon that can help your boys teach themselves how to use the kit. Here's one. Does this help? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted October 22, 2009 Share Posted October 22, 2009 DS11 says: They are about building and programming your own robots. If your sons don't have a bit of computer geek in them, then its a bad investment. The home page is nothing about the actual product, as currently they are hyping the carrying of a model around the world as a marketing technique. If they are computer geeks, they MIGHT like it. The programming is simple, as in drag and drop, but you do need to understand some Boolean logic. It's quite different than normal Legos, but with some experimenting, you get to use your bricks, too. :gnorsi: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tap Posted October 22, 2009 Share Posted October 22, 2009 We have the older Mindstorms (not NXT-but the generation imediately prior). Ds loved Legos but never really liked Mindstorms. It just wasn't his forte. He played with them, but not with the level of interest I was hoping for, for the price. I am saving them (and the Bionicles) though because the still use the pieces and parts in some of the college level engineering classes here and he seems to be taking a liking to his highschool engineering class.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
talexand Posted October 22, 2009 Share Posted October 22, 2009 I bought my first Mindstorms kit before I had kids. I even taught it as a volunteer in schools before Lego was selling it to anyone except schools. Now I coach a First Lego League team and I run a robot club at the school where my kids go part time. I also teach lego robotics classes locally. I really love it. I just can't get over the engineering experiences that kids can get today and this is the best example that I have seen. THe kit is expensive, like everything from Lego. But it lasts for years. The equipment is very sturdy. We have used ours a ton by multiple kids at home and at school and it has given us no problems. My kids started with Mindstorms around 6 or 7 because I could teach it to them and help them. My oldest is 10 now and an excellent programmer. My 8 year old is excellent too. When they are ready to move on, they can use the same hardware with a more complex programming language, robotC. So it really grows with the child. There is a good web site, http://nxtprograms.com that has a ton of building instructions for different robots and programs if you children need ideas or more instructions. THere are many books out too. I do think it is a great investment. You can get years of use out of it, especially with multiple children in the family since some may become more interested than others. Terry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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