Today, children expect computers to do much more impressive things on a screen. Putting text on the screen and reading text input was new enough to keep my interest. That didn’t allow anything but programming from the moment you turned it on, and the BASIC keywords were just a keyboard press away.
It’s the best equivalent I’ve found for my own first programming experiences with BASIC on the Sinclair ZX81 when I was 8 years old.
As robotics is not yet pervasive in everyday life, the limited functionality is helpfully simple without seeming unimpressive. Controlling real objects in the real world is interesting enough to small children. It’s a nice simple first step into programming and robotics for kids that aren’t old enough to deal with Lego Mindstorms, which I guess needs a higher level of reading and writing skills. For instance, the program can turn the motor on or off depending on the whether a sensor detects something. It’s a very simple system of sensors and a motor that plug into a computer via a USB hub so the child can write simple programs to control it. Last week my son, who has just turned 6, tried out the Lego Wedo kit that I’ve had sitting in the cupboard until I thought he was ready.
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