[ScottWhigham]

I think that Lego Mindstorms are a great intro, and that's something parents can wrap their heads around and "sell" to their children. We have a franchise company down the street from me that does summer camps built around Mindstorms - http://www.bricks4kidz.com/. It seems to be a fairly large franchise also. My 9yo son is taking their "Introduction to Game Programming" weekly camp/class in a few weeks. Might be worth looking at their curriculum/marketing for ideas.

[ramalhoorg]

Mindstorms used to be great, but compared to Arduinos and the whole ecosystem that sprang up around them, it is just too expensive, too proprietary and too limited. Here is one example: http://www.seeedstudio.com/depot/shield-bot-p-1380.html a pre-assembled $69 robot where you plug an ordinary Arduino Uno or compatible board, with a chassis full of possibilities for expansion using off-the-shelf components. For block-oriented programming there is now Scratch which is free software and works with Picoboards (also open hardware) and Arduinos.

[Malloc_Leake]

Yeah, there are just so many possibilities now. There is something wrong with your link, though.

[Malloc_Leake]

Yeah, that seems like a good approach. Thanks for the link!