InventrReviews of inventr.io

I found this kit amazing. It was my first contact with a world I didn't understand (even being a programmer) and the team provides great support and a super experience. I cannot be more excited to recommend it

Overall, I like the contents of the kits. There was one issue, is that the RGB LED was supposed to be a Common Cathode type, but a Common Anode type was sent instead. This not only confused many people, but the Common Anode type is harder to write code for. As for the lessons, I like the theme of rescuing yourself as a way to make the content more engaging. On the downside, all of the videos seemed to be done without any script, preparation, or practice. The audio volume had not been normalized, so one video would be loud and and other quiet. As for content, there are many cases where a description of some part of the system was completely wrong. As an example, when discussing the SDA/SLC, the component was wired to the analog lines. This works, but has nothing to do with the lines being analog, but it was explained that somehow analog lines were better at doing certain digital tasks than the digital lines themselves. It is actually because those same lines are doing double-duty as an I2C port. What would have been far better, is to wire those to pins from the device to the SDA/SCL lines on Hero board at the opposite corner. They are actually wired internally to the same place, but it is far, far less confusing to the viewer if the names of the pins match up.

The kit was great and the instructional videos are well done. Have I had some issues? Yes. But they were mostly things that I caused. If you wire something wrong it might break. Lesson learned. My only real complaint is that as a novice, I often felt like I was missing some understanding about the tutorials. It didn't stop me from following along and getting the results though. AND it cause me to do some independent learning about programing.

I bought an Arduino starter kit from Inventr about 18 months ago, but when it arrived, I put it in a drawer and forgot about it. Then late last year, I started seeing ads for the new 'Space Adventure' kit Inventr was promoting. This reminded me of my kit, so I investigated their website and found I was able to subscribe to the 'Adventure' course for free. The course is very good, and has shown me what these micro-controllers are for, and has expanded my knowledge amazingly! There are also follow up emails giving access to additional resources, and the company seem to genuinely care about their community of 'creators', through encouragement and approachability. They do this without pressurising people to buy extra kit, and are happy to allow people to access all their learning resources.

Really great kit. Lots of varied components from very basic resistors, LEDs, breadboard etc right up to 7-segment display, OLED screen and 4x4 keyboard. Coding lessons were fun, I really felt I got to grasps with the basics of coding in C. Alex's videos were generally very good at taking you through the steps involved and logic behind each program.

Super cool to get my daughter to code! She's 12 years old. Already wrote Scratch code for a Cozmo robot. I wanted her to be able to get a little closer to the metal and real programming. She loves it. And we post videos on TikTok (she likes that even more). You need a TikTok account that we can tag.

The short of it is it's very good. And I imagine the next version of it will be 5-star worthy. I got the 30 Days Lost In Space kit. From there, you log on their website and get daily videos telling you your assignment and walking you through it. There are step-by-step instructions, as well as a good image of how your wiring should look when you're done, and how your code should look, too. There's a message board for discussion and (I'm told) a Facebook Group and other places where you can go for help. They are responsive and seem to be supportive of the product. I'm learning stuff. I really enjoy this. Really. I'm about a half-dozen lessons in and I've learned some simple wiring set-ups and simple code set-ups and I've made things work and giggle happily when they do. This is educational but it's also fun, which is turning it into a good pandemic project. That said, they email regularly with more projects and side things to buy and THIS time they've asked for a review. Honestly, there's a lot that can be improved to make this an absolutely killer kit. Some small, some bigger. Minor Things I Would Improve Immediately: (1) The kit doesn't come with a Contents List. Some folks have discovered on Lesson 6 that they're missing one of the parts you need for Lesson 6. Would've been better if we could check off the contents from the start to make sure we had everything. (2) In the first video, we got a really nice explanation of the Breadboard. I would've appreciated a similarly-detailed explanation of the Circuit Board. Like, "Assume I've never seen a Circuit Board before." By Lesson 6, it was pointed out that it's Analog on one side and Digital on the other. This, too, is one of those things I would've appreciated up front. (3) Also could use an absolute "So you're starting from the beginning" lesson on coding. It has been pretty rudimentary (and we can catch on quick), but really basic things like the brackets, and using all caps for some things, and when you use double equals signs and ... all this stuff that everyone actually just KNOWS would've been a helpful intro rather than jumping in the first project. Hell, some of this showed in the first "quiz" after the first week of lessons, and all it did was emphasize that I was being tested on stuff I was never taught. Bigger Problems: (1) The whole conceit of this is the Lost In Space thing. Which is a fun little plot and a bunch of the students are having fun playing along with it -- but it isn't manifested very well in the lessons. There's just a little bit of text on the screen telling you the plotline, then you get your video actually teaching you how to do the project. Actual short VIDEOS of the storyline presenting the projects would be fantastic. (2) There are elements to it that seem a bit unprofessional. The wiring diagrams you get sometimes don't match the wiring in the video -- someone is using the breadboard upside-down. (It doesn't really matter, but why not fix this?) Sometimes there are typos in the code we're supposed to follow -- the one in the video works, but the version printed out for reference on our screens sometimes doesn't. (3) Imagine someone playing with this has never really played with electrical circuits before (or that Ohm's Law is a very distant memory). We can follow directions for "put the 220 resistor in there before you ground it" but don't understand the WHY of it enough to duplicate it (on one of those free days when we're encouraged to experiment with our own projects). Why a resistor? Why THAT resistor? I'm not expecting you to go on for any real length of time on the science behind it, but I'm spending a lot of time on my own looking at these wiring diagrams, imagining 5 Volts going in, and trying to understand what's happening to those 5 Volts and why we're doing what we're doing. I've understood it (at least for the first lessons) but I'm afraid it will get ahead of younger students (and may get ahead of me on harder diagrams). I would love to see this improved. The people behind it seem passionate about coding and the videos show that they really want us to learn this stuff and share their passion. But it does need a bit more work to be amazing.

"30 Days Lost in Space" is a great idea, but the execution isn't great. Each exercise is good, but the videos are boring for kids (mine are 11 & 18), and painful for adults. The videos would work much better if they followed more of a script, and were done by someone with more experience teaching. That said, I would still recommend the kit as good value for money. I've stopped watching the videos with my kids. Instead, I watch the videos at 2x speed, then work though the exercises with my kids.