We’re looking to make the jump to EV3 on Garnet Squadron Alfa (and perhaps even grow to Garnet Squadron Bravo), and I’m looking at the options for doing so.
The standard retail EV3 kit is $350 from LEGO (seems to be about $300 on eBay), while the version of the kit you get through FIRST is $499. They don’t say what’s in the latter on the FIRST website, except that it includes the battery (which is about $60 on its own). Can anyone share the other differences between the two? Is it worth the extra coin?
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.
Last year we ran our one team with an NXT set I bought of eBay years ago (it was collecting dust in my place, so why not put it to use?). Good enough to get to the state championship and a first-place at the qualifier in robot performance, but we also ran up against some limits along the way (some in parts, some in programming and sensor options, some in just fussing with the old NXT software).
So yes, there’s a fair bit of stuff our teams can poach in addition to what we have in the new kits–but considering we’re already at $410 for a retail kit with the rechargeable battery (another limit we ran up against–I didn’t think we would blow through that many AAs over the season!), I’d have to find a very strong deal to pass on the FLL kit.