Hello. I would like to know if Lego Mindstorm EV3 would be an engaging project for first year college students? Also I would like to know what other components would need to be ordered with the mindstorm for it to be complete and workable.
The Mindstorms EV3 kit is complete except for AA batteries. Although LEGO Mindstorms is used all the way up to the graduate level in order to make fast prototypes, the basic kits is suitable for ~10 year olds and up, so he/she may find it a bit too easy, unless they choose to include parts from third party manufacturers (GPS and other more complex sensors).
You might consider something a bit more advanced, and we have some ideas here:
robotshop.com/en/robots-coll … ities.html
The lego mindstorm is a great platform for even college students because it abstracts a lot of the interfacing. Sensors are plug and play, your motors have built in encoders (doing one yourself is difficult to tune without knowing the theory).
Also the lego mindstorm, because it is lego based allows you skip the mechanical aspect of machining a robot chassis. This allows you to build your robot using lego pieces. Believe it or not, you can make some incredible projects with the lego mind storm.
It is very engaging and most of all, it is pretty much fool-proof. You won’t be able to break it very easily. The programming language being Robot C, provides many functions that allows you to easy interface with a large variety of sensors.
I would other a few sensors and a lego building kit with it.