[BrennanB]

I would definitely recommend the educational set. The educational set comes with a whole extra box (853 pieces) of useful lego, though if you have an abundance of lego already then it may be a little less useful to you.

The retail set comes with the IR sensor (which was an illegal sensor in the 2013-2014 season) while the educational set comes with the ultrasonic sensor. The rechargeable battery is also pretty useful rather than going through a ton of batteries. The gyro sensor is also included in the educational set, which a cool one for the kids to play with.

Software wise the Educational software is marginally better than the software that you get from the retail one. The educational version home screen is just a lot cleaner, and there are a couple of little, mostly useless things that the educational one has that the retail doesn't.

Hope that helps!