Kano Star Wars The Force™ Coding Kit - Explore The Force. STEM Learning and Coding Toy for Kids

As a programmer and a huge Star Wars fan, this kit is right up my alley and I was so excited to give it to my niece who is also a huge fan! She loved putting the kit together, connecting it to her parent's iPad, and learning to code. The software provides a great framework that starts fast so kids can see cool results from their code quickly, but it's proved to be surprisingly deep in the time we've spent working on it. My niece has started to grasp some core programming concepts that I hope will start her journey to becoming a programmer like me (okay maybe I'm planning a little too far ahead). The Star Wars tie-in is great, as it got my niece interested in something she otherwise might be hesitant to try! I think the only downside is that my sister and her husband don't see their iPad very much anymore. :)

We got this for our 8 and 10 yo kiddos who like Star Wars and love doing STEM activities. We’re always looking for something that will get long term use, since it seems like they get bored of most toys within a couple of weeks. It’s been over a month now and it’s still getting sporadic use. They found the tutorials easy to follow and fun to code it to do different things. They only thing I wish is that they could each have their own “account” they could switch between with their own stuff. As it is, it works fine. That’s just a minor thing I think would be handy.

I will give the company credit that they happened to mention, at the very bottom, in one line, that the device requires bluetooth to connect.That said - when Christmas shopping, I tend to look at product descriptions, and this one has a pretty thorough one. The biggest part missing? There is NO mention of it requiring a PC with bluetooth on the motherboard to work (which is pretty damned rare unless you're using a laptop or a very high-end motherboard. Nearly NO one uses bluetooth on a desktop machine aside from specialized input devices, like keyboards that don't work for other devices.)To top it off, when received, the box doesn't bother to mention anything about needing bluetooth, either. It simply states that it is compatible with Windows 10 PC. Near the end of the manual it happens to mention connecting to bluetooth and that was the only thing that allowed me to even realize before we put the Kano together that it was a paperweight. Sadly, I can't afford to purchase a $400-$500+ ipad for my son or a $150 - $200 kindle fire 10 (that's out of stock anyways, and wouldn't function, apparently, since his account is a child account) to be able to use the item, so I'm going to have to go hunting for ANOTHER device for his computer to be able to use his Christmas gift.Thus far, not impressed.

We had many points of frustration tonight realizing that the app for the Star Wars Coding Kit could not be installed on our 8 year-old son's new Kindle because it's not available in the Amazon App Store; nor could we get it on our older PC. That said, once I pulled out my newer PC and downloaded the app from the MS Store he was mesmerized. He told me after time was up that it was a really great gift and he was so excited, which from a quiet kid means a lot. After seeing the user interface, I think the Kindle screen would be too small anyway and recommend a fuller screen.

My husband (Tech Geek) loved it. I purchased it for him this past Christmas and once it was just the two of use at home that evening I found him building it and playing with it. He thought it was a great gift and would definitely suggest it for someone, both young and young at heart, who is a Star Wars fan to purchase it and have fun with it. Yes, it will at some point become part of their memorabilia but for now it is a toy that he likes to mess around with.

I teach computer science, so I thought this would be a fun way for my youngest daughter to get into coding. She's much more into Star Wars than Frozen, the other coding kit choice...which brings me to gripe #1. Your Avatar can only be male for the Star Wars kit...a bit backwards, if you ask me. Is the assumption that boys will code in Star Wars, while girls will code in Frozen? Kano, that's just lazy, and sorry way to justify two separate kits. Assembly was easy enough, though parts don't "click" together as the instructions imply...Had to grapple with pieces until they could fit into place. Motion detection a little sluggish, but works. Awful on iPad mini tablet. Kept losing the connection to the tablet and would fail to reconnect. Drop dragging code blocks was a mess also. Much better on a PC with a mouse and keyboard (would be better if would work on Chromebook). Can't see how they could ever justify selling this for $79.

I bought two of these as Christmas presents for my Grandchildren. They sound like they will have fun learning how to code and perform different tasks on their computers. I bought two so that they both can learn at their own rates.

My seven year old got this for Christmas. It's simple to use and engaging, and helps with learning basic coding principles. At this age it's a great way to have fun and learn at the same time.