Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I loved this concept. I’m a cybersecurity engineer, and my three year old son is catching on very quickly to scripted routines. This game set gives him a tangible and age-appropriate way to create his own challenges. I will say that the concept is dead-on: my son understood the programming procedures almost immediately and was soon learning how to base turning commands to the mouse on whichever specific orientation the mouse would have at that point in the script. Beautiful to witness! But, the product’s flaw is in its keystone component: the mouse itself. It simply fails to function properly and consistently. In particular, the first few instructions entered into its memory seemed to become corrupted, resulting in a repeatable failure state of an initial 30-degree left turn followed by a halt. This happened whether the instructions involved turns or not. Sometimes I was able to reorient the mouse and get it to continue executing the remainder of the scripted movements, most of which executed properly...but even this capability was inconsistent. All batteries were new and within 8 years of their expiration. I tried three sets of main-brand and Amazon batteries, and all produced the same performance failures. I also tested the batteries for voltage (just in case...a long shot), and most were above 1.5V, consistent with new disposable batteries. As other reviewers have stated, the mouse also fails to perform accurate 90-degree left or right turns, even when the mouse’s memory does not seem corrupted. This erratic turning behavior makes it difficult to ensure that 100%-correct input will yield correct output (mouse movements). Such unpredictability is harmful to learning programming logic. Given the mouse’s turning problems and repeated memory corruption, I have to suspect that it has internal voltage control deficiencies. I found that repeatedly clearing the memory (10+ times in a row) yielded a higher success rate, but still around only 67%. Luckily, my son identified the source of the problem (“the mouse is broken!”), but I could see this becoming very frustrating for children who don’t have computer scientist parents who can salvage the unusable mouse for an game on probability (probability that it would work or fail). So, my recommendation is not to buy this product until the stated issues are resolved. I am returning mine to Amazon for a refund. I will certainly reach out to Learning Resources, however, because with some debugging, this product will be amazing and will build a foundation in scripted programming logic in any kid. Until then, I’ll buy a substitute product or build my own Raspberry Pi or Arduino setup with a cardboard track or something.