I like this kit, but the price really jumps when you go "full kit" - but it's still cheaper than just about any other 6-legged robot kit.
That said, one of the nice things about whegs vs. legs is that you get almost all the benefits of legs, with a much simpler (and lower cost - in theory, if you don't go with Robotis servos, etc) design. Basically the whole "80% of the functionality for 20% of the cost" idea...
The ability to get over obstacles is very impressive. If you have ever watched a RoboMagellan http://robogames.net/rules/magellan.php competition, you will have seen many robots fail to do what MiniRHex can do.
The odometry has to suck, though. The rest of your nav stack had better be able to compensate.
Overall, very performant. It gives me the itch to go out and build one.
This is from my Oxford concise English dictionary, 9ed (1995):
> sic usage: the word sic is placed in brackets after a word that appears odd or erroneous to show that the word is quoted exactly as it stands in the original
There's also this part of the entry in Wikipedia [1]
> A sic may show that an uncommon or archaic expression is reported faithfully
I still feel like it comes with the implication that you're not expected to see this as a normal term; but in this case, its apparently perfectly well-known, just in a particular field that HN doesn't perhaps specialize in.
It would be like adding [sic] to articles about quantum mechanics, using terms that a physicist naturally know, but a programmer wouldn't. And that'd just be weird (or rather, a lot of [sic]'s going around)
It's 3d printed and the design is fully open, but you can buy a full kit for under $200 if you don't want to buy and print everything yourself.
Disclosure: One of my relatives did a lot of the design.