…especially when it involves building robots to beat the heck out of each other. MindRover: The Europa Project comes from the aptly named CogniToy, and it is exactly that -- a software "toy" that lets you create and program robotic vehicles that compete against each other in a variety of race, sports and combat settings, and maybe exercise a few brain cells in the process. If you think "fun" and "educational" are mutually exclusive terms, read on and see if CogniToy can prove you wrong.

The premise of MindRover: The Europa Project is that you're a new arrival on far away Europa, one of Jupiter's moons, and that you're feeling a little homesick. For some reason, the cure for this is to build a bunch of robots out of a wide array of types and components, wire them to work the way you want them to, and turn them loose in competition against other computer- or human-designed vehicles.

The manual, while lengthy, is well-written, jam-packed with necessary information and will walk you through the rather complicated process of designing your vehicles. Your first task is to design a hovercraft that must make contact with another stationary one. Sounds simple, right?

Well, not only do you need to get just the right components (an engine, steering, radar, etc.), but you have to wire them together in just the right way so that they work in unison to accomplish your goal, and the goals keep getting more elaborate.