Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsYou learn more by breaking it ...
Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2018
I got this for my seven year old's birthday. The kit was easy to put together and the booklet explains what the elements do. We hooked it up to an old HDMI TV, everything worked right away and looked great. Pretty soon he was learning the text commands with me nagging him to make notes as he goes - remember user name, password, commands etc. I really like that it starts by teaching text commands and builds on that. Just like the 'proper' computers we used back in that day.
Then, we agreed to a firmware upgrade which took longer than expected ... almost done .... blackness. Oh no we lost power right at the critical moment. On power-up the Kano valiantly tried to recover but no luck, we had bricked it. I have to emphasize this is ENTIRELY MY FAULT since I had used a power outlet I knew was unreliable. Lesson 1, dad is an idiot.
Kano gives great instructions on how to fix this, which involves downloading OS from internet and installing this in the
memory card. This does need some extra hardware and technical chops, but easily done. Perhaps less so if you are not a geek, just find one. So Lesson 2, fault finding, leveraging resources and the joy of bringing your computer back from silicon heaven.
Lesson 3, how to replace a faulty electrical socket without killing yourself or annoying your wife excessively.
So from disaster comes the opportunity to pass along several important life skills. Pretty soon we were back to coding in scratch and reading the instructions only as far as absolutely necessary. Currently our cat is flying upside down which is hilarious but not what we had in mind.
In case you hadn't guessed, my point is the best way to learn is to have problems to overcome. The great thing about this little kit is that is isn't a magic black box - it's a computer you can modify, break and repair. That's the only way to really understand what is going on. Toys are made to be broken.
