I have a sneaking suspicion that my children are smarter than me. One clue is that they really enjoy coding, which is definitely not my forté. Fortunately, there are tons of great resources out there to help them learn more about how to use code, like our latest discovery, Robot School.

This cool educational app offers a series of challenges that kids can solve using programming elements, including functions like loops that are used in languages from BASIC to Java. The levels get progressively more complex as they introduce new variables and require more steps to reach the solution. You can even see how your code translates to Swift, an iOS and OS X programming language, based on the elements you’ve used.





Robot School is different from apps we’ve loved like ScratchJr and Hopscotch, which are more open-ended and geared toward creating, whereas Robot School focuses on problem solving. It’s recommended for kids age seven and up, and I concur. My 10-year-old whipped through several levels, but my 7-year-old needed some guidance. But that makes Robot School a great game to play together, especially since debugging requires patience — and that’s essentially what you’re doing each time you run the robot through the program you’ve created.

Right now, Robot School has 45 levels, which ought to keep most kids busy for a while. It would be really cool if developer Next Is Great (makers of the beloved Love to Count Pirate Trio app) continued to add levels with upcoming releases. Kind of like Candy Crush, except educational.

Find Robot School on iTunes for $2.99 and Google Play for $2.68. No ads or in-app purchases.