While the Robot Turtles programming language isn’t Turing complete, it prepares kids with the skills they’ll need to learn to love programming as they grow up:

Experiential learning. Kids start the game the same way they start programming – at the command line. Every instruction they issue is executed immediately. They quickly discover that they can learn by trying things out.

Debugging. The “Bug” undo feature offers the simple confidence that they can try anything. If it doesn’t work out, they know they can back up and try again. For new computer learners, discovering that there’s no cost for being wrong is essential to their growth.

Limited syntax. Computer programming is about expressing complicated ideas with just a few simple building blocks. The first time they play, kids will want to tell you what to do, or point the cards sideways to make them do something different. Learning Robot Turtles is a process of learning to use a new, simple language to express complicated thoughts.

Order of operations. It’s quickly apparent that “forward, forward, right” is very different from “right, forward, forward”. 

Planning a program. There’s nothing more cool then when kids graduate to “Play 3” and “Write Program” and you see them planning out the whole course in their heads. Just like real programmers, they mentally run their code and debug it. Then they get frustrated and just try it to see what happens… also like real programmers.

Functions and optimizations. Although the youngest turtle masters may not be old enough for Write Program and Function Frog, this offers slightly older kids a level of abstraction and challenge on par with “real” programming. Yes, kindergartners can refactor code!

Computers work for you. Somewhere along the line, programmers learn that writing code isn’t like doing your homework – it’s like ordering around a devoted (if not very bright) servant. Guess what? You are the computer and they get to order you around. (That’s why kids love this game!)