Hello Dave,

The best choice depends on the mix of learning electronics and
learning programming that you desire.

LEGO MindStorms:  Very easy to program with the provided drag and
drop development environment ... an extremely gentle introduction
robotics programming.  When they outgrow drag & drop they can then
move to Dave Baum's NQC and Mark Overmar's RcxCC.  NQC (Not Quite
C) is freeware and does an excellent job of exploiting the RCX's
capabilities.  RcxCC is also freeware and provides an wraps a
Windows IDE around NQC.  NQC/RcxCC provide an easy transition to
"real" programming in C.  This approach give little or no electronics
experience.  Dave Baum also has a recently published book, "Dave
Baum's Definitive Guide to LEGO Mindstorms" (available from Amazon)
which is an excellent intro the Mindstorms robotics using both the
drag/drop and NQC approaches as well and LEGO construction.

Parallax's BoeBot:  Parallax has a "Stamps in Class" project based
on its BS-2.  There are several courses available: "What's a
Microcontroller?" provides an excellent intro to programming the
BS-2 and building simple circuits using Parallax's "Board of
Education".  The "Robotics" course uses the Board of Education
on a servo motor driven base.  If they develop an interest in
learning more about programming/electronics there are more Stamps
in Class courses that go into more depth.  The course materials
and parts may be purchased in from Parallax, or the course texts
may be downloaded from the Stamps in Class site.  The texts give
complete lists of needed parts so if you have a large junk box
the overall cost is quite low.  The BX-24 can be directly substituted
for the BS-2 in the Stamps in Class program, but then you lose the
programming half of the course ... and someone (you) will have to
give them a lot more guidance.

I started my boys (now 11 and 12) in October of '97 on Mindstorms
using the drag/drop IDE.  A lot of fun (both for them and for me),
but the step from drag/drop to NQC was a little difficult for
them.  They're now using the Stamps in Class courses as well as
an intro electronics course from Chaney Electronics.  Although I've
been playing with the BX-24 (and think it's a huge improvement over
the BS-2) for a couple of months, they're sticking with the BS-2
for the time being.  On both the Stamps in Class and Chaney courses
they need a fair amount of parental guidance.

They both developed an interest in learning more about electronics/
programming.  To learn BASIC it turned them loose on an old 286
DOS only machine with a copy of David Schneider's "QBASIC".  It
has proven to be an excellent self-teaching guide for them.  The
12 y.o. is now working through Microsoft's Visual Basic Step by
Step while the 11 y.o. is still on QBASIC.  Both of these courses
have required almost no parental assistance.

NQC:    http://www.enteract.com/~dbaum/lego/
RcxCC:  http://www.cs.uu.nl/~markov/lego/

   http://www.stampsinclass.com/
   Chaney Electronics:  800.227.7312

Hope this helps,
 - Nick -

Ann & David Scott wrote:
>
> 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