Is Chumby the Right Controller?

After having worked with the high schoolers in BotBall, I noticed that they were using a CBC to program the robots. CBC stands for Chumby BotBall Controller. This turns out to be a handy little device, with a linux operating system, that has an ARM processor, plenty of RAM (64MB), a flashable ROM, internal simplified C programming, and an interface to robotics control ports. I proceeded to look for this controller on the BotBall site but did not have much luck, and the price is around $300 which is a bit rich for my budget. On the other hand, I was able to locate the Chumby One at http://www.chumby.com which seems to be a more likely choice for what I want. In fact, this device is on sale at CostCo for $99.99. The device in and of itself is a highly usable internet appliance. But, it is also highly hackable, both in hardware and in software. I am interested in the processor because it has both Wi-Fi capabilities as well as a USB port. I am thinking that if I use the USB port for the robot interface that it would simplify the construction of the spiderbot. Hmm... more to follow.