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Re: What does it take to brick an RCX (no pun intended)?
I don't think I'd worry too much about the Mindstorms RCX bricks.
I've been involved with FLL since 2002, and I've never seen any of the students I've mentored break any of them. I've seen them drop them (multiple times!), put all the batteries in the wrong direction, plug motors and sensors on the wrong ports, plug the motor output onto the sensor inputs, and the list goes on and on. (Leave it to 12-year old kids to find as many ways as possible to try to void the warranty...) All stories short, they all survived.
Generally, the motors are pretty robust as well. Only twice I've seen kids drop them and shear the shafts off the motors, and once there was a kid who would always try to attach wheels to the motor and manually spin it as fast as possible (stripping out the gears on the inside). In normal use, as long as they're geared down correctly, they should never burn out.
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