
Kano: A computer and coding kit for ages 6-12 - Pamar
http://us.kano.me/products/kano-kit
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ausjke
That looks neat, a bit pricey though. snap circuits focuses more on the
assembly side which is also good :
[http://www.snapcircuits.net/](http://www.snapcircuits.net/)

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dogma1138
100$ for a RasPi, case, wifi dongle, mmc, cables and keyboard isn't that high,
you won't find much cheaper kits even if you are counting in the chinese
knockoff's (which aren't necessarily bad, some of the chinese SBC's are one of
the better ones as far as performance go on the market especially when PPP
goes). The only thing that you can fault them atm is not having enough kit
extensions like various IOT and PLC devices or kits that use the GPIO on the
Pi but those can come in the future and they much more software design
oriented than builder oriented.

What is sad tho is that Lego had this and much more like 10 years ago but
never got anywhere close to the level of coverage this gets
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Mindstorms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego_Mindstorms)
They also had a line for schools I remember actually having electromechanical
legos to play with in primary school in the mid 90's and it seems they
developed them more and more
[http://ceeo.tufts.edu/documents/journal/1999bemccr.pdf](http://ceeo.tufts.edu/documents/journal/1999bemccr.pdf)

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zenlot
189.99 GBP for a kit+screen version, seriously? A child will be better suited
with a new laptop for the same price (it can be coloured if you wish) and
install the software needed for art, creativity, programming or anything else
interested in.

PS: "Award-winning design, based on 10,000 hours with educators, artists, and
kids." -> Who awarded for this design? I am really concerned if that's all you
could deliver after spending 10,000 hours.

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sreyaNotfilc
I've actually convinced my 13 year old niece and 11 year old nephew to learn
to code. I know there are a lot of financial benefits to doing so, but I'm
trying my best to have them focus on just making things that solves some of
their problems.

I have much younger nieces, perhaps this can be a little Xmas gift for them.

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ajb
I work for Kano - anyone got any questions?

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empressplay
Aren't you worried about kids handling a bare circuit board without an anti-
static strap, or even without discharging themselves first? I didn't see
anything about that in the instruction manual preview.

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ajb
Interesting question! The answer is that it's pretty rare for anyone to break
the board in this way. If they did, I'm sure we'd replace it, but although we
have shipped a lot of kits now, last I heard there weren't any returns where
the board was zapped. There is a degree of ESD protection designed onto both
the chip and the board.

