[raimondious]

It looks like this translates Pocky in different positions to lines of code and then executes that code. This is too many levels of abstraction even for me to make sense of as a professional programmer... I like where their heart is but I think this would be a terrible introduction to coding.

[brink]

Looks to me like an opportunity for a TV show spinoff - "Are you smarter than a 5th grader eating snacks with a smartphone?"

[Karlozkiller]

There are many similar programs/games, where you program through icons instead. There is some science behind suggesting there is some transfer to real world programming from that.

As far as I recall, children can learn "Computational Thinking" without having to concentrate on the often heavy syntax of programming.

I agree with you that setting up candy on a table, to take a photo of it and then getting some game-character to move accordingly, sounds a bit far fetched and might not give enough to actually learn programming. But it could definitely work to some extent, and if nothing else it sounds like a great markething scheme.