>>   First robotics is not cheap but it is a great program.

Well, there are all sorts of levels of robotics, and some of them are a lot
cheaper than others.  At the bottom of the list, you have BEAM, which makes
use of 'minimal' electronics and 'found' parts.  Then there are the various
toy-based robots; if MIT teaches a robotics based on LEGO, it certainly
ought to be OK for a high school club. And "Cyber knex" seems to be getting
discontinued and is available pretty cheap some places (heh.  Picked up a
"cyber knex ultra" set for $16 at a "Marshall's" outlet store...)

You don't really get to the expensive stuff until you want to buy major
parts and components ("someone go get another PC104 isolated digital IO
card), and that's probably less 'educational' anyway...

Building your own PIC-based (or stamp-based, or quarter-stamp, or whatever)
will save you a lot of money...

Robot clubs tend to get composed of computer geeks.  If your school
has shop classes and/or voTech programs, see if you can find someone
mechanically inclined who's also interested in robots, that'll be a
big help (the teachers are good for finding such people.)

BillW

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