What resources will I need and what does it all cost ?

You will need:

• Robosapien of choice - RSv2's are the ones to have at about £100 each, RSV1's are much cheaper from Q4 Technologies but have more limited functionality. Check eBay for bargains. You can do quite a lot with the robots and nothing else - i.e. the bowling exercise and tidying can all be done without any computer based programming. You can use the Roboraptors and so forth as well and this makes for the opportunity to drive more than one robot in the same "pace" allowing interactivity as they all work on different frequencies. However again there is limited functionality. You could use as RS Media but they are a lot more money with limited extra useful functionality.
• Redrat IR senders. if you want the full on programming experience you need something that will talk to the robots from your computer - these come in at about £980 each although Q4 are developing a cheaper alternative
• The software and a computer of course if you want the command line programming interface as well

For this project at Princethorpe College we bought 5 Robosapien V2 (which cost £100 each. We also bought 42 D cell rechargeable batteries and 49 AAA cell rechargeable batteries. RV2 takes 6 D cells and 7 AAA cells. This gave us enough for 5 sets plus on set on charge. We also bought two 8 cell fast charge battery chargers for around £80 each.

Beware that the batteries are likely to set you back almost as much as the Robots themselves but it isn't worth buying non rechargeable batteries and that the RV2 needs the weight of the batteries in his feet to stop him falling over and some rechargeable batteries are lighter than others. So make sure that you buy the heavier ones recommended by Q4 Technologies or else the robot will fall over very often. The batteries and charge were almost exactly £500. Total cost of all the kit was around £1300.

You will also need to think of some way of storing all the bits and pieces
(the standard packaging isn't in any way reusable).