I bought a Kano last year and have done a bit of work with it. One of the things I like is the way they emphasize community, very similar to Scratch. Sharing of final products and code is encouraged.
They also encourage creativity by suggesting particular projects, providing some base code, and then offering ideas for how to personalize them that challenge you to write your own code. I find that it’s a nice balance of recipe and personality. It reminds me a bit of the ds106 Daily Create. You get the germ of an idea to spark your own creations.
The past week, I’ve been participating in the Kano Summer Camp. Each day brings a new challenge from camp flags to badges to tents. They use the Mark Art app that comes with the Kano and has a web-based version so you don’t need the Kano hardware to participate. The challenges get increasingly difficult. Today, I was able to figure out how to craft a pretty rudimentary star using polygons. It’s mostly trial and error, still, as I don’t completely understand how the code works.
I can’t help wondering the age of my fellow campers but then I decide I don’t really care. It’s a kick when I get a like or comment. And, I’m so impressed with the work they’re doing. I generally do my own challenge first before checking out the shares so I’m not intimidated or overly influenced. The creativity is amazing and I’d encourage to create an account and give it a try…it takes a few minutes a day.
Here’s my star badge: