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Subject: 
Re: Help Me Spend Some Money!
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.robotics
Date: 
Mon, 9 Aug 1999 20:16:06 GMT
Original-From: 
Jonathan Woodward <woodward@guesswork.comNOMORESPAM>
Viewed: 
785 times
  
At 03:56 PM 8/9/99 EDT, DanL08@aol.com wrote:
Wrong again.

    (Again?  You're thinking of someone else.)

The Team Challenge set has the EXACT same piece count as the RIS, • includes
storage, an alternate constructopedia that is related to an activity pack

(essential for a school setting) and includes both MAC and PC cables.

    -And good for it.  If, however, you'll go through the Pitsco-Dacta
catalog and look at the various Lego packages they sell, some of them are
_extremely_ expensive on a per-piece basis, coming close to $1/piece in
places.  Many of the sets, like the one you describe, are much more
reasonably priced.  I maintain that price/piece is something that should
_definitely_ be examined before buying any kit of Legos.  If the Team
Challenge set is as you say (and I don't have a catalog in front of me to
confirm, but have no reason to doubt you), then it passes that check
admirably.

The cost
per part is irrelevant for a set if it doesn't work well in a classroom
environment.

    -Absolutely.  Schools run on budgets, however (typically small ones in
the USA), and awareness of how much you're getting for your buck is
important, as I'm sure you agree.

You may be able to justify buying by the per piece cost, but
that doesn't work when you have 20 kids using the sets every day.

    -If you don't pay attention to price/piece, your budget may not extend
_far_ enough to buy parts for all 20 kids.  For example, the Pneumatics II
set from Pitsco-Dacta costs $100 for 208 pieces.  For that same $100 I
could get two sets of 8250 (Search Sub), with a combined total of over 750
pieces.  Now, the Pneumatics II set is optimized for the classroom, but
the nearly 4:1 piece count ratio should be considered too, n'est-ce pas?

    -JW


Jonathan Woodward  woodward@guesswork.com  http://www.io.com/~woodward/
"It's the Millenium.  Motives are incidental." -_Scream_

--
Did you check the web site first?: http://www.crynwr.com/lego-robotics



Message has 1 Reply:
  Re: Help Me Spend Some Money!
 
(...) This assumes that all pieces have the same value. As an absurd example, if you just count pieces you are counting the value of an RCX the same as 1x1 plate. In addition to that, you have marginal value to consider -- if I gave you 1000 1x1 (...) (25 years ago, 9-Aug-99, to lugnet.robotics)

Message is in Reply To:
  Re: help me spend some money!
 
In a message dated 8/9/99 3:43:42 PM Eastern Daylight Time, woodward@guesswork.com writes: << -However, the Dacta stuff tends to be much more expensive per part than "regular" Lego kits like 9719, and storage is cheap. (Try the WorkForce Organizers, (...) (25 years ago, 9-Aug-99, to lugnet.robotics)

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