So, it's a mindstorms ideas book with a few parts to demo those ideas? What an odd little thing.

I was given a book for educators that had a lot of Mindstorms RCX projects in it. It was outdated, as it was already about a year or two before EV3 came out, replacing NXT. RCX is super-cheap on the secondary market, and have been looking at amassing some to try the book's projects, and maybe trying these expansion packs. But, between the software, cables with crumbling insulation, and serial connectors on some of the hardware, might as well just go with NXT and spend a little more.

@Lego_Lord_Mayorca:
Oddly, Exploration Mars and Vision Command are the only two RCX-gen sets I own, at least that I'm aware of. I got Vision Command just for the janky camera, which turned out to be a waste of money (there was serious static in every image). Exploration Mars, I think I was able to pick up on severe discount, probably at TRU or Meijer (two chains that I believe did carry some of the expansion sets). I suspect the primary reason I bought it was for the wires.

@cody6268:
There are three distinct types of 9v wire that I've been able to identify. One has super-thin shiny insulation, which is garbage from day one because the insulation pulls away from the connector bricks, and you end up with exposed wire right where it goes into the connectors. A second type has thicker shiny insulation, and I have not seen any problems with those yet. The third type has a dull, squared-off insulation that looks more molded than the other two. This is the problem style, as the insulation has usually started to degrade by now, and it just crumbles away when you flex the wire. Unfortunately for me, because I'd seen all three types before I started buying 9v wires, I _always_ asked for the last type just to avoid the first type (at the time, the insulation was still stable). Luckily, a guy in my LUG has found a source of wire that looks almost exactly the same. I think it's actually a slightly thicker gauge wire, but the insulation is about the same as the thickest of the real stuff. There are some white markings on the wire, which can be used to identify which wires are authentic and which are not, but they're faint enough that they're not obtrusive. And because he gets this stuff on spools, he can make custom wires that look official in any size you want (previously, he'd been using speaker wire to make his own custom lengths, which has a transparent insulation that looks completely different).

So, there are options if you really want to get into RCX-gen Mindstorms, but the software is definitely going to be your biggest challenge, since the stuff you need to load onto your computer might not be compatible with modern systems. The next biggest problem will be the RCX bricks themselves. The 1.0 RCX had an _AC_ adapter port, but the problem is that people would use a DC adapter with it. Doing so ran the risk of overloading one of the two power busses, and shorting it out. It would still work on DC power with reversed polarity, but you had the same risk of overloading the other bus and shorting that out as well. The 1.5 and 2.0 bricks omitted the AC jack due to this problem, so you could only run them off batteries. The NXT had an optional rechargeable battery pack, which you could use to run the NXT off an AC or DC adapter (doing it this way eliminated the fried bus problem), but I don't know if they'll still work in this capacity once the battery dies (which it will do at some point). But the big problem people have had with the NXT is that the screen will eventually die. Unfortunately, I can't remember if there's a fix for this.

I have this one (as with all the original Mindstorms sets) and it was actually pretty neat. You could build a robot with an arm to shoot balls into a basketball hoop, or swing a stick to hit a puck into a goal. It's exactly what it sounds like it should be. For a theme that was mostly centered around tech and science applications, this was a welcome change-up to inject a little competitive "fun".

The instructions are somewhat open-ended (as will all Mindstorms of that era) but they provided a jumping off point for sure. It gave you enough to get started, but didn't hold your hand. I always appreciated that about those old Mindstorms sets. It was up to the builder to discover the full applications of what they've made.

I was never into robotics with Lego. I'm not skilled at tech at all, but after watching so many movies I expected these robotic sets to look better, not like after market SW droids.

These themed expansion sets were a great idea. I hope now that Lego has tied together its education and consumer robotics strands (Spike Prime + Mindstorms) we might see some more stuff like this in the next couple of years. Not holding my breath.

Based on the cover, the set is...

@PurpleDave said:
I got Vision Command just for the janky camera, which turned out to be a waste of money (there was serious static in every image).

I think Vision Command was really neat, being able to build a system thank could track movement. The camera quality was pretty okay with me for those days.

Still wondering why webcam design has been almost halted for the last ten years BTW.

@ApolloVI said:
"I have this one (as with all the original Mindstorms sets) and it was actually pretty neat. You could build a robot with an arm to shoot balls into a basketball hoop, or swing a stick to hit a puck into a goal. It's exactly what it sounds like it should be. For a theme that was mostly centered around tech and science applications, this was a welcome change-up to inject a little competitive "fun".

Here is a picture
https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=9730-1 T=S&O={%22iconly%22:0}

Basically, for $50 the box contained some motors and parts to make a tracked vehicle with a throwing arm, but you still needed the mindstorm RCX1 controller from 9730 which would set you back $200. I lot of money back in 1998 when the 3 year old Playstation 1 was being discounted at about the same price."

@Andhe said:
"For anyone wondering what it is, it's a sports almanac sent back from the year 2050. Planning on getting one so I can place winning bets on all the big robo sports games. Robo-soccer, robo-darts, robo-golf and robo-basesoftbasketfootvolleynetball. "

How many times do I have to tell you: don`t mess with the future!

@Wrecknbuild:
Most people on the internet probably don't even own a computer. You can't plug a webcam into an iPhone.