[clan]

Scratch is really great - do not get me wrong! But I find it too advanced. They do support various external hardware. And I can highly recommend the Make lock mbot. Truly awesome.

But Scratch is one step up the ladder to me. It is a commitment to an eco-system and a super nice but blank canvas.

I find Logo to be simpler and more limited. This is a "good thing"(tm) when getting kids hooked. The first hit should always be free :-)

I have gotten some of my non-technical friends to buy mbots. They like the idea but the learning curve was to steep for them.

[sokoloff]

There’s a subset of scratch that felt very logo like. My kids (5 and 7 at the time) readily picked it up.

Their hardest struggle was dragging the blocks around with the touchpad. It would have been less frustrating to have a keyboard-based interface I think. (Now that I type this, I realize maybe I should have tried a two button mouse for them.)