How should I spend this upcoming summer? (Junior)

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Sun, 07 Oct 2007 09:34:08 +0000

Hi, I don’t think it’s worth because I’m an engineering student (electrical, to be exact) and through our campus society/club/organization/whatever you want to call it, we have two Lego Mindstorm competitions throughout the year. You don’t learn that much about robotics, rather just how to program them in the Lego programming language. Building them is mainly programming the board - which doesn’t take into account all of the actual engineering/science that goes into building a new one. They give you premade sensors and other stuff, as you already know, and you just put them somewhere on your invention… not much of real engineering, if that’s what you’re looking for.

If you really want to learn about robotics (the REAL ones you see on TV, movies, etc.), you’ll need to take advanced courses in electrical/computer engineering and possibly courses in computer science (if you want to focus on those types of thins), or go to the mechanical side (which is very important as well). With the Lego Mindstorm, you don’t really learn the ins-and-outs of real robots, so I think it would be a waste of $3,000.

I think putting that your resume or application will help you little to none. I highly doubt undergrad admission counselors will really know what Lego Mindstorms are. If you really want to impress them, participate in Intel’s Engineering and Science fair - they’ll be able to reconize that. It is great that you’re learning and want to expand in this field, but simply Lego Mindstorms isn’t too advance. If you can toy around with it already, you can’t do very much at this camp, unless compete in an organized/formal competition.

Sadly, I hate to say this - I think that place is trying to rip off students. It’s not worth $3,000 to me at all. I hate to sound negative in this whole post, but I think the price tag is what is making me bitter. I’m only providing you with my opinion and what I think of the general scope of the program. Unless you can give me more details or a link to the website detailing what you’ll learn, etc, then I’ll reconsider.