I'm a big fan of Lego Mindstorms as an entry point for robotics and physical computing and even got my start in UAVs with it. 

Here's the most UAV-friendly sensor yet for Mindstorms ($85): 

The CruizCore® XG1300L is a digital fully self-contained MEMS gyroscope and accelerometer. It is compatible with the Lego® Mindstorms NXT kit. 
It includes a signal processing unit that estimates and compensates for the most significant errors that affect gyroscopes, providing an output with minimum error. For convenience, the CruizCore® XG1300L internally integrates the gyroscope output in order to compute the angle. The angle value can be used directly as the heading measurement in navigation applications.
The CruizCore®XG1300L includes a three-axis accelerometer that provides calibrated accelerometer output. The accelerometer can be used to compute tilt angles, detect robot collisions, or to determine changes in velocity.
The CruizCore® XG1300L communicates with the Lego® Mindstorms NXT through the I2C bus. It implements a communication protocol compatible with Lego® NXT, and users can use their favorite programing tools to communicate with this device. 


The sensor outputs from the CruizCore® XG1300L are near-free of errors and can be used immediately in applications.

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Comment by R_Lefebvre on April 11, 2012 at 1:37pm

Interesting.  Chris, I've been meaning to ask you about the Mindstorms stuff.  My 6 year old boy is really bright, loves Lego, would he be ready for Mindstorms yet, or is it too advanced?

Comment by Santiago Torres on April 12, 2012 at 5:34am

May be the diydrones team could develop something like the APM for Lego?  I am also fan of Lego Mindstorm.

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