Recently advised a Primary School on what control equipment to buy to introduce the topic to staff and pupils. Went through 4 systems, starting with simple circuit boards you set up a sequence of commands with for about £6 each, through to specific education systems costing about £120. At the end, the head asked me..yes.. but whats the best system? I advised her it was 'LEGO NXT' and she promptly bought 5 kits. I hadn't included this in my list of 4 initially because of cost, but i think she chose wisely!
This may be a suprising choice for many schools, and certainly is not the cheapest option, being around £1000 for 5 kits and a site license for the essential NXT Mindstorms software, but it has many advantages. The pupils are not scared of breaking it, they are already skilled in assembling the components, the leads used are robust and cheaply replaced if they do break. Replacement parts are all numbered and cheap to buy, and finally, it is compatible with every other LEGO brick in the world.
Of course there are a a few downsides... 471 pieces, many tiny, is a big classroom managements headache so I suggested they bought some rather oversized rolling toolboxes big enoughto store all the bits, and with room for part built models in the base.
My favouite piece of techhie kit for school is the Roamer, a simple big disc shaped thing with buttons on. Someone very clever decided it should be powered by those huge square lantern batteries and therefore it went for ages and could be stored ina cupboard without losing charge... You can still buy them..but I would now buy NXT!
