I am in charge of the Team 25 Summer Lego Camp this year, and being that this is my first year runnign it, and only second year being involved, I would appreciate any advice that more experienced people can offer.
One thing i am particularly worried about is that i heard somewhere that people are having a lot of trouble using the lego software in XP. If this is true, can anybody give me information on this?
Any help would be be appreciated, thank you all for reading this!
I haven’t had any issues with it. (I have RIS upgrade to 2.0. I believe the 1.5 version also worked fine, but that was a while ago.)
I’d be willing to (try) answer any questions you might have about LEGO Mindstorms.
i thought of another question.
i was considering buying some extra lego gear for the camp, anybody know what might be best? special sensors maybe? if so, what kind?
Rotation sensors. Period. 
thanks texan, anybody else want to add something? right now this looks more like an IM session than a message board thread!
http://www.techno-stuff.com/ has some really cool sensors for lego robotics. I’ve been involved in lego robotics for years but I’m not exactly sure what you’re looking for. Do you just have the mindstorms kits?
yes, i am pretty sure that all we have is a few mindstorm kits, and maybe some random blocks from other sets thrown in, but all the hardware is from the robotics invention system 2.0
thanks for the website! 
If you are looking to obtain additional kits to use in your robotics camp, I might suggest you take a look at the Lego-Dacta Robolab kit. This kit is the educational market version of the retail Mindstorms kit. As far as I know, the Robolab software runs on all versions of Windows as well as the Mac OS. A program written with Robolab looks like a program flowchart and may make it easier for students to visualize the logical flow of a program.
Additionally you may want to visit the following website:
This is the Lego League website for the state of Minnesota. On this site they have a set of 6 weekly lesson plans which can be incorporated into a science currriculum. They cover a wide range of topics such as basic Lego construction, the physics and math of gear ratios and basic programming techniuqes. You may wish to adapt them for your use.
If you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact me.
i looked at the dacta online, and i think it is the same RCX system that we have with the Robotics Invention System 2.0. considering this, I will look into the dacta because it is probably compatible with our current supplies. 
i was looking at the Ultimate Accessory kit, does anybody have experience with this that they can tell me if it is good?
Yes, it is the same. Dacta is a more educational focused version of the LEGO Midstorms stuff. All the hardware is compatible with the RCX and components that come in RIS 1.0-2.0.
Yeah, DACTA has a good curriculum set up for LEGO robotics. Try contacting LEGO systems to see if they’ll help you out. They’re generally pretty good about education.