Trolio also considers the finer-point Super Tips an important add-on for kids who are starting to draw with more detail. This set gets you 100 markers for less than $20. $16 at Amazon ...

Instead, kids snap together blocks, each which has its own command. By stringing together a series of commands, kids can give instructions to a connected toy or device.

The robot would be a lot more accessible to a lot more kids if it supported a child-friendly language. Out of the box, the unit comes with the code to draw a few simple shapes and a maze.

So far, the research team has created a reference device called the Coding Kit, with which kids can arrange the blocks to create instructions for devices, including a drawing robot, and Lego’s ...