I have a brother-in-law who has expressed interest in a father-son robotics
project for him and his son.  (Finally!)  They're both pretty smart but have
no experience in electronics.  His son is 13.  I'm debating what to direct
them to.  I'm looking at 3 projects:  1)  Robert Nansel's breadbot robot
series of articles in Nuts & Volts, 2)  Myke Predko's IR Tank robot using
Tamiya parts or 3) Parallax's Growbot.  For a brain they could use
Stamps/clones (BX-24?) or PICs.  My strategy would be to provide them a
project with software they could build & get up and running and then go on
to learn to modify the software.  Stamps may be easier to learn since they
use BASIC but couldn't they also use the PICs with the help of the Easy Pic'
n books?  Any of these options I think are within their budget.

Has anybody been down this path or know what might work best?  Any
recommendations would be appreciated.  Thanks.  Dave Scott