The Lego Mindstorm Dilemma

When Lego Mindstorms first came out, I was working at Honeywell in the area we called Muppet Labs. My mentor had brought in a naked furbie at one point, so when I ran out to Toys 'R' Us at lunch and came back with a Mindstorms kit - no one thought much of it. My cat at the time, Sprocket, was at the least mildly entertained with it until he decimated it with his pouncing from the refrigerator.

Recently I've been getting the Lego Mindstorm itch again - building physical things that I can program - and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the new set has Bluetooth ability. And - yes, someone has already written an Android application for the Lego Mindstorm NXT. I'm presently deciding whether to pick up the new set and play with it over the winter - in winter it helps to have something to do other than sit in front of a computer - but here's the thing: It's priced higher than a 16 gig iPad 2.

The kid in me, always right below the surface, wants the Mindstorms. The kid in me also wants a tablet PC. In a perfect economy, I would get both. As an adult, I'd rather support Lego than Apple as far as business practices go - Lego is still supporting the concept of hacking whereas Apple has gone in the other direction - where 'Think Different' means, 'Think Like We Tell you to. It's different. Trust us.' 

So how do I get a table PC and a tablet? I suppose I could get the Kindle Fire to balance it out. If the Kindle Fire had Bluetooth so I could connect to the Mindstorm with it, they'd probably both have sold one more.

The dilemma. The dilemma.

Hacking used to be a lot cheaper.

Life was simpler when Radio Shack was actually an electronics store.