Comment by alexjplant

I was fortunate enough to get LEGO Mindstorms (the OG one) for Christmas as a kid. By that time I'd already learned a bit of QBasic and so had programming experience. While I found the visual programming paradigm limiting I also wasn't creative enough to come up with robots that needed more than what one could build with the software so I had no complaints. I had a great time learning about gear ratios and how flaky the light sensor was depending upon room brightness.

Is there anything similar and as well-supported from Lego or otherwise these days? An ESP32 is great fun but some assembly is required.