I just got a nice e-mail from someone asking if they should buy their son the Educational MINDSTORMS kit, or the Retail MINDSTORMS kit for Christmas.
Of course, the answer is Yes. hmm... Maybe they wanted to know which is better.
Short answer: It doesn't matter. There is a slightly different parts mix. The retail version may be better in a "stand-alone" situation. But neither would be a bad investment in your child's future.
Hope that helps anyone trying to answer the question.
Steve
---> Link to lots of MINDSTORMS stuff under my picture --->
I do not agree with that. I guess the educational version is fine for, well education, but the set does not contain instructions and parts for more challenging robots. For most home users I would suggest buying the retail version. I think it is more fun for most. The educational kit does not include the colour sensor neither, which I think is a fun sensor to use.
Then reread what Steve said. He did bring out the point that in a "stand-alone" situation, the retail version may be better.
I have all three versions, and I am very impressed with the 9797 kit, much more than either of the others. It has a much better parts selection (though fewer parts). An extra (fifth) sensor, as well as a rechargeable battery pack, is definitely a huge plus. I do have to agree though, that it is not very good as a stand alone set.
On the other hand... if a child is using the Educational kit at school, I think they'd be better off with that same version at home. That way they could expand on the work being done in the classroom, when they have more time at home.
And, there are plenty of resources on the web and in books for finding additional building instructions.
I can pretty much argue either way, because I think both are good.
Steve
---> Link to lots of MINDSTORMS stuff under my picture --->
Educational does definitely make more sense if you will expand your robots as you will then have rechargeable batteries. Definitely a good idea if using more than one NXT brick as a larger project will probably need more time to complete than one charge and would be a pain to disassemble different parts of your project many times for each NXT brick. Whereas if you only use that one kit, the cool factor of having a color brick, I would think, outweighs the pain of disassembly. But that's just my opinion.
If you want to compare there's an excellent site which also includes the "Education Base Set and the Resource Set." http://static.robotclub.ab.ca/pages/nxt ... s_edu.html
Ironically I only have a NXT 1.0 kit, but I have seen the rechargeable batteries; awesome when making a compact robot where many things attach to the main NXT brick.
