InventrReviews of inventr.io

My hero board would not communicate with the PC. Since I already had an Arduino UNO, I used that instead. I did complete to course and learned how to use some components I hadn't used before. On the whole I enjoyed the sessions.

Excellent way to teach the basics of how your electronics work!

the programs & wiring did not always match.

This review is for the Inventr.io “Adventure Kit: 30 Days Lost In Space”. I had been meaning to teach myself more about microprocessor programming, but found it hard to get motivated. This kit seemed to be the ideal solution – all of the materials provided, including the microprocessor and a nice assortment of accessories, like a keypad, seven-segment LEDs, rotary encoder and even a tiny OLED display board. I was excited by the theme – I’m stranded on a strange planet and will have to code my way out of trouble. The 30-day timeline was also inspired, a finite goal with daily tasks. Sure, at $75 it was a bit pricey, but I was hooked by the story and anxious to start. For the first couple of days, I was suitably impressed. Simple lessons and concepts and clear wiring diagrams ensured quick success. My problem was with our instructor, Alex. I have to say that I am sure Alex is a smart guy and really knows what he is doing, but unfortunately, he is not a good teacher. His rambling explanations were seldom helpful and sometimes actually misleading. As a programmer myself, I was able to figure out what was going on, but I could not help but feel sorry for anyone who was new to programming or electronics and was trying to understand new concepts based on his roundabout explanations. I believe that Alex was trying to keep from going into too much detail and instead wound up providing too little. Some examples: His description of the HEX numbering system, his description of libraries and their embedded routines that are called in the code – the very least we need to know is what each parameter is that we are passing, but that was just glossed over, even the very simple concepts of pull-up resistors and current limiting resistors were skipped. He even seemed to have trouble keeping to the Lost In Space theme. Seems like the concept of Objects in programming deserved some explanation, but we got nothing. To be fair, I am only 18 days into this at this time and maybe it will get better, but I seriously doubt it. I guess I am so disappointed because I really wanted this kit to succeed at its promise. I won’t say that I haven’t learned anything from this adventure, because I absolutely have. I just feel like it has been harder to learn those things that it had to be. And I’m sure others would like to learn more of the stuff that we are not being told, like where can one get more information on what else is in the libraries, and is that source code available somewhere? Finally, I’ll also add that the components in the kit are of good quality and that there are a lot of useful items provided and used in practical ways. If you already have some programming knowledge and apply yourself, you will come away with some useful information and sample code that might help with your future projects. My fear is that you might not fully understand why all of that code is there and how to modify it to your requirements and that, sadly, is the real failure of this course.

Bought 2 kits for my 9-year-old twins. Fantastic idea and a great learning project for the summer. No tools needed or previous experience coding. Since my kids have had previous coding classes and camps I thought they would pick up the mission fast. Unfortunately, this kit falls short on instructions. They became frustrated and in tears after spending hours trying to figure one lesson. I had to stop them so they wouldn't be put off by projects like this in the future since I wanted this to be a fun summer lesson. I was about to recommend this to the other parents with kids about the same age but I'm glad I didn't. Now, do I scrap this whole thing after spending hard-earned money or spend hours searching online for help from others that may have encountered the same issues. I was hoping this would be a learning experience that they could figure out themselves and I didn't want to get involved.

Great kit and training videos with fun spaceship theme. A couple suggestions for improvement: provide/ sell a weighted base to arrange and hold the Hero and the breadboard. On a related note, use a thinner/more flexible USB cable. These changes would make the wiring and testing more enjoyable. There have been a couple times that the act of untwisting and connecting USB jostled the hero/breadboard/wires and caused a disconnect.

Interesting learning topics for beginners. Fun starter kits with well done videos to get going.

Purchased the 30 Days List in Space for my 14 year old to get him interested in electronics and programming. We absolutely love it! Lessons are broken up into bite size lessons so it’s easy to absorb the contents. Well documented and great videos to help you through. I’m looking forward to both of us completing the kit and on to other great stuff to build!