fpdave

Many thanks Repkovsky - I bought an unopened 17101 from somewhere in Austria via Bricklink! Birthday present for my daughter! (and me :-) )

Seems like its quite hard to find 17101, does that mean that spares and upgrade parts are also hard to find?

So, the simplest option may be to go for the 17101 Boost, but its a bit of a dead end, and may be hard to upgrade. But then 5 standard builds, and lots of options in the kit may be enough to keep my daughter (and me) amused for some time anyway. or, go for one of the Powered Up kits such as buggy 42124 and 42140 and have to off-piste it a bit if we want to do alternative builds. Tricky - but thinking that the Boost 17101 may be the easiest option. One final question: we were a bit bitten by going for a non-Lego Robot kit, and would need something reliable, with the bugs out of it. Where the sensors work (even the Sphero Mini collision detection doesnt work properly!), as its very disappointing to a 9 year old (and to a 56 year old)

Many thanks for this info, although its not exactly what I wanted to hear. Yes, I read that the app-controlled sets (ie the buggy 42124 and 42140) have specific app (skins?) and don't allow programming/custom builds, otherwise I would have gone for one of those, but we want to build other things and enhance/upgrade over time. Are there any viable/quality 3rd party apps for controlling modern Technic controllers that you could recommend and which might then work with the app-controlled sets and with additional motors/sensors as we might add them?

We have recently enjoyed building a robot (non-Lego brick-like kit), which is remote controlled and programmable, but the app is flawed and programming is too frustrating, and it only has 2 drives. But it only cost £55! I also bought her a Sphero Mini, which is simple and provides block programming to have it move around, flash colours etc. But, I think a robot/crane/buggy kit, ideally with multiple motors/drives and ideally can be enhanced with sensors would be perfect to get her to the next level of building kits, programming and having fun navigating courses etc. I'd love to hear suggestions for what kits we could buy for building a moving thing (robot/crane/buggy/creature/etc) with the ability to program it in a scratch like block programming language, and which could be upgraded with sensors and more motors going forward. We have about £150 to spend. Regards