Inventr Avis 

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!

I ordered the launch/30 day kit, the components of which are great and come in their own little storage box. I've unfortunately had a hard time slogging through the lessons, which I've found disorganized and frustrating, in my opinion, they're a first draft at best. There is no clear instruction on coding, or language and syntax, and plenty of instances where errors are left in the videos, or corrected off screen. I think it would be great to get this kit into the hands of educators, and solicit as much feedback as possible on how to turn the lessons as presented into valuable instruction.

I purchased the 30 days lost in space kit. I have a fair amount of electrical and some electronic background but no coding experience. I struggled. I made it until day 11 before putting it aside due to frustration. The videos were good and the story line makes it fun. I do think the videos could be scripted a bit more and thus be more organized but that is quite minor and I believe you are redoing them already. My more major frustration came with being let behind. Sometimes the code written in the video didn't match what was in the box below the video with no explanation why. If you have trouble with your code (or the wiring) the comments section was useless. The comments section doesn't have comments about the video at all but it filled with people making improvements or upgrades to the lesson. If you are having issue with the base lesson I don't need 400 pages of more advanced ideas to try. I need help and comments related to the actual lesson. The "free" day every fifth day is a great idea but I was so lost on previous 4 days I couldn't imagine venturing out on my own and "freestyling" a project. I think the first "free" day could have some structure to it. Then the following "free" day (day 10) could have a bit less and so on until I am ready to think up and execute an idea of my own. Those that are more advanced can easily take more freedom as they see fit. The facebook group is a good idea and does offer some help but as many people are phasing out FB it becomes difficult. Overall I like the kit and the idea

I really like it and it is super fun. Keep doing what you are doing. The only feedback I have is that you could still add some more bonus levels. I would enjoy that a lot. Thanks

Horrible set up instructions. So I have to replace my OS for ChromeOS ? What a scam!

Good product, good ideas but needs some cleanup & refinement.

First, the drivers link is broken on the downloads page. Not a good look on day 1 when trying to get things working.

Second, the videos would benefit greatly from scripts and being broken up because they are rambling and the kids lose interest. The "lost in space" story should be very scripted and stand alone. 1 min story intro, *do the build*, 30sec story outro. No conversational, off the cuff, video blog rambling.

My kids want to hear the story, immediately try the build on their own, then come back to a walkthrough video only when stuck or if they don't understand something.

Love the videos and course. Especially the extras. Had to leave off for a while, but will return shortly.

I recently bought the 30 days in Space kit and it's been great so far. I really like the bonus missions that show up after the fact. I would recommend this kit to anyone.

Been enjoying the kit, even though I can't keep up with the timeline the company suggests, but the lessons are pretty good, and explain enough of the theory that it makes it fun to play around with different configurations.

Great concept only issues I have are
1 board is to small difficult to work with
2 could use a basic description of what all the coding words mean because I have never had any training as I’m sure most people don’t finding the coding is the hardest concept to grasp
3 better way to store resisters once I used them and they mixed was difficult to identify also could include card showing how to identify the different resister values
Like the videos
Like the product

I found this kit by accident through an add on Facebook one day. I never thought how involved I would get in this hobby. Through the beginner kit that I have bought, and a the great classes I have worked through, this hobby has become something that I strive to have as a career. The team behind these kits is amazing and helpful. I can't wait to see what they come up with next

I bought this for my grandson while he was here on vacation. I had some trouble loading the program in windows. I am not sure why but after a few tries it finally worked. The electronics part was fine and no problem. the coding was a big problem and my son in law couldn't get it to work either. We finally got through 2 or 3 lessons and it was time for them to leave. I let him take it with him. He does like it and I am going to try to help him. I think this is a very good project for young people now days.

It was both fun, interesting and educational on both learning hardware and software development.