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I teach my 11 year old daughter with an Oopic controller. It's simple, programmable in BASIC, Java, or C++. It's simple and fairly easy for her to understand. It's also affordable!

Here's the website: http://oopic.com/

Keith

A lot of people have caught the obvious, so I will really just summarize.

LEGO NXT & Mindstorms are both great kits to play around in. Especially if you have traditional LEGO bricks and Technic pieces already.

If you are more into Erector style kits, then go with the Vex kits from Radio Shack. They are clearing them out for some reason, so they are cheap. Make sure you get a programming kit though.

If you want more "professional" robots, maybe take a look at Lynxmotion, they have really really cool sets that will come with everything you need to make an arm, or a walker, or what have you.

Of course, you can go pre-made, but simpler, with a Mark III. This basic kit is wonderful to learn programming of a micro controller.

If you want a more capable micro, the OOPic is a good choice.

I have played or own all of the products above, and they are all wonderful ways to get your hands dirty. Of course, also see the book recomendations in this thread, there are excellent selections there too that I highly recomend.

Based on my experience, here is an easy and cheap-ish way to get going from the hobbiest perspective.

1. buy a book like "The Robot Builder's Bonanza" (already mentioned elsewhere)
2. go get an OOPic (http://www.oopic.com/) this is less than $100 and lets you start learning about microcontrollers. It even has some microswitches and led's onboard, so you can start learning without getting into electronics yet.
3. now go buy a radio controlled tank from your local toystore. take the top off and remove the 'radio' parts and replace them with your oopic. use a couple bumper switches from radio shack to give it awareness of its surroundings. (I like the tank more than a radio controlled car, because navigation can be simpler. forward, reverse, pivot left, pivor right)

You can see the robot that I did using this approach at http://dahlweb.net/index.php?page=zaurbot
On this page, you can see that I added a Sharp Zaurus to supplement the OOPIC

The Atmel AVR systems have a full free toolchain based on GCC, and can be in-circuit-programmed for cheap. You can't get the highest-end chips in DIP, but you don't need Mega128's for most projects.

Best solution for starting out: the OOPic. The OOPic is a PICmicro programmed with a pseudo "object oriented" hardware language, and a simple scripting language. Compiler is free, works great, uploads over a serial cable. You can quickly hack up little things to try. There's also the Basic Stamps, but I haven't used those.

After you get happy with doing things like that, you can expand and get into AVR's and PIC's directly. Maybe by then you'll be able to justify in your mind buying a compiler, too.

http://www.oopic.com/

http://www.acroname.com/robotics/parts/S1-GP-BRD.h tml

These are two microcontrollers for robotics. I have used the OOPIC and heard that the Brainstem is also very good. Both come with sample code. They are an excellent way to start a robotics project.

OOPic home page. The OOPic is a PICmicro based controller that includes it's own OS that offers hardware object-oriented programming. It makes working with robotics stuff actually fun.

There is also a yahoo group for the OOPic dicussion, which is the primary support forum.

Supposedly Microchip are impressed enough with the OOPic OS that they're going to start selling it directly as an offering with PIC's.

...one of my professors introduced me to Scott Savage, the creator of the OOPIC. He wanted us to brainstorm on a security implementation for his device. I suggested something similar, but since the OOPIC is most often used in robotics, he wanted something for physical access security since that has been a hot topic since 9/11 and I work company whose primary business division is security guards. Unfortuneately, he didn't go for it and I ended up submitting a P2P security article to CACM which got accepted but has not yet been printed (they advised it would be 14 months or so, so I'm anxious!).

Isn't there a better way

Yes, check out some of the OOPIC projects.

While you poke fun, I adapt.

I'm in high school and I think robotics are cool, I'm actually trying to build one on my own at home. I went out and bought an OOPIC for $50. It's really a neat little thing. Allows you to interface things to it like lights, servos, motors, etc. And then you can write a little program for it in Basic, C, or Java. Just get the kids some of those throw them in teams or two or three, toss them a handful of $10 servos, see who can build the best walking robot, whatever.

I find that a lot more exciting than making stupid "Hello World" programs. :)

Oopic http://www.oopic.com
Servos http://www.towerhobbies.com
also http://www.robotstore.com has nice kits (including mindstorms).

"Some OOPic robotics can be found here