Vexplorer now available for pre-order!

[Billfred]

The trade-offs seem fair to me. Programming is over the heads of a lot of people (myself included, for the most part), but everybody can think of fun things to do with spycams.

My thoughts:

a) It's a simpler kit--if you're familiar with prospect theory*, or even if you stared at a Vex kit for a while wondering "What the heck am I gonna build?", you know this to be a Good Thing.

Spoiler for *What the heck is prospect theory?:

Prospect theory is often summed up in one line: Losses loom larger than gains. If you split something off into several parts and charge for each, the consumer feels the hurt each time. Consider an all-you-can-eat buffet now: you might not eat $10 worth of food, but you only had to pay that one price.

b) Instead of a good Saturday afternoon for the Squarebot, you can now have a moving robot (bear in mind the general public's perception of what a robot is) within a short time--with an arm. This is a Good Thing.

c) The price point is particularly nice. The original kits were a steal at $300, but a $200 price point is going to catch a lot more eyes. It's now in sub-Wii territory, which should make parents wince less, and I imagine it'll pick up some more interest from hardware hackers (MAKE: already noticed). When I looked at things that could replace Vex in FTC, I couldn't find anything to match Original Vex for the money (my data); I imagine someone looking for mod-friendly hardware in that relative size is making the same comparisons in their head.

I won't be buying, but I'll be watching.