Originally published on Facebook, by Ellyson Barnes

I recently purchased the Grove Zero Car Kit which uses Codecraft as the programming environment.

At first I was rather astonished to find only three modules (and a battery) included. I was under the impression I needed far more to do anything cool with this project. I was pleasantly surprised to find out just how wrong I was! The owner’s manual is very clear, and includes not only applications of each module, but also what it is and how it works.

I really like how user friendly Codecraft is.  My son is 7, and he was easily able to get started right away.

The ‘drag and drop’ style makes it super easy to add and remove code to suit whatever project you’re working on. And allows lots of room for creativity with the drop-down menus!

The one drawback is that some of the programming blocks are not intuitive for a 7 year old.  While most of the blocks have 2 or 3 words on them, that does not offer enough of a clue to render understanding. But after some trial and error, the coding was de-mystified.