If you want to get your kids into coding (or learn yourself) both Khan Academy and codeacademy.com have free tutorials.
I’m lusting for the EV3… I coach a FLL robotics team and this year about 1/3 of the teams had the EV3. We’re still using a mindstorm.
The arduino boards mentioned in the link Russ posted are also very cool. My kids class had some purchased for them by the non-profit foundation that supplements what the school district can’t afford.
There are lots of opportunities to get kids into programming.
Russ – I hear you on the minecraft and legos. I’ve been telling my kids to learn programming in order to make new mods to minecraft… That’s the cool think about minecraft – it’s user modifiable. So you have pokemon mod-packs, hunger wars mod-packs, etc… All coded by fans of the game.
