Kano Computer Kit – A Computer Anyone Can Make

Very good kit. My son got a complete kit and I bought this one for myself to learn with him. Set up is easy and the coding activity's are good for young kids that don't yet have alot of math.You can also do quite a bit of web surfing on it and watch you tube but not netflix.Only con is if you want to use sound through the head phone jack instead of HDMI you have to remove the light kit.

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 thememory 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.

He LOVED IT (even though it IS just plugging an led into a chip). It asked his name. Cam'ron. "Hello Camron, I am your computer. X's & O's" THEN EVERYTHING WENT DARK. Nothing.I wrote the "support team" from the flyer in the box that says "STOP! DO NOT RETURN THIS TO STORE. CONTACT US" - I heard no response to the email, help center, or facebook messenger (only one response on a Facebook post where I was asked for a customer care number so they could look it up (i asked how I get a customer care number - or customer CARE in general, and have not heard back). It's almost funny how BAD the customer service was.Yeah, I'm mad at the company & the first unit sent.BUT Amazon replaced it despite the company saying to return directly to them. When the other one arrived, it functioned properly. It kept my 10 yr old's attention for a few hours. It DOES teach old-school programming. It IS slightly customizable. And it IS fun/friendly like a Tomogotchi or Furbi... but that's about it. After a few hours, it is repetitive... but my son is more of a Gamer than a Developer. That being said, if your kid IS really into code, you'll have better luck with an old computer from Goodwill & YouTube Tutorials.

Gift for my six year old. He saw Kano on some YouTube videos, albeit paid promotional videos. This is fantastic. He loves it. This was his favorite gift of all his Christmas gifts. If I could do one thing different, I'd have spring for the "laptop" Kano, because not every monitor works. However, if you, like me, have some monitors laying around, this is a no brainer. Buy it!

I bought this for review purposes and to see if it was worth it for education and teaching. I've used Raspberry products for a while now and have bought other kits to see which was best. I've also used these products to teach high school students with some success.This item is marketed as an education tool for elementary and early middle school kids and to be honest despite overall looking for (at least on paper), it's not worth the purchase.Main reason is simple: Raspberry is a bit too much for a typical elementary or early middle school student and in most cases will cause more frustration than education. Your mileage may vary and it's certain that there are kids who will really enjoy this, but having taught at several schools, I noticed that it's best not to use any Raspberry products with lower than grade 8 students.Ok, how about high school then? Well Raspberry itself is great an highly recommended, but Kano was designed with elementary in mind and has too many things that would only appeal to younger kids (e.g. characters, avatars, built in mini games, they are a bit too simple for upper middle school and high school).On top of that, what you get for the money is a bit disappointing. There are several much better deals out there and so unless you really need an orange mini keyboard or coloured cables, I'd recommend looking at something else.So in conclusion, if you are thinking of buying this for child education purposes and have never used Raspberry, I'd highly recommend going with something else. If this is for you and you want to explore the OS they've created and/or want to see what has been developed, it's what I got this for as well, although I got this on sale and even then felt a bit ripped off. All in all, it's 2 stars max, simply because of the price tag for the amount of things offered.

feels slugish and outdated fast