Perhaps if you gave more detail about the robot you want to build, we could offer better
help.

This has all been great advice. Thank you very much.

BTW: I LOVE ax-man. I could hang around there and brainstorm for hours.

Ah. That does seem to be a different animal.
(Mindstorms website here)

We had an Apple ][+ once. Sometimes I still miss it.

good heavens why? i miss my ibm pc(as in "ibm pc", not a later personal computer from ibm), but apple IIs were not nearly as much fun.

and if you want to buy me a mindstorms set i'd be ecstatic. in theory i can drive some of it with my phone

You never forget your first.

I agree, there's still a soft spot in my heart for the Apple IIe, it was my first too...although my first college programming course was on the IBM PC, actually I think we were the first class to use them (does that date me?), Turbo Pascal baybee!

Edit: I take it back, it was WATERLOO Pascal, some godawful interpreter than ran on both PC and VAX...anyway...

i suppose it was technically my first real exposure, but the ibm had a hdd! it was the first -at home- though, which might count.

Mindstorms absolutely Rock!! I got the original version for a Christmas + Birthday present when they first came out and I created a butler robot that would track a line of black electrical tape that was on the floor and you could put four cans of pop on it and when it was empty, it would hustle its way back to home base for a refill. I used it at a couple of parties that I threw while the parents were away back in high school and everyone thought it was cool.....it was a small step for robotics, one giant leap for nerdiness! Ahh the memories...


Anyways, I don't have any more suggestions for robotic hardware, but I do have a couple for programming robots that might be age appropriate:

First, "ALICE"(www.alice.org) is a free software tool that helps teach a multitude of programming languages through interaction with 3D characters. It was developed in conjunction with Carnegie Mellon and was targeted to teach programming to everyone grade school and up. This software works very well at motivating students to learn and demonstrating how different commands can alter the outcome of the code. I see this as a great starting point for familiarizing the kids with programming while hardware is being scrounged up,and they are still in the stages of designing the robot.

The second tool that will help greatly is Microsoft's Robotics Studio.(http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/robotics/default.aspx) This software is also free and can interface with a majority of robotic controllers(Mindstorms included). The software allows for the testing of code through the use of virtual robots and when the time comes to program the robot itself, the code can be sent relatively easy to the robotics controller.