Sherston Flobot review

'Control' is a key concept in the National Curriculum and is often taught by getting children to program simple robots such as the Roamer.

Flobot is more like what kids first imagine when you say 'robot': a friendly metal chap who grins his way through the six animated activities under the user's guidance.

Flobot is available at a lower price than schools pay when you order it from a separate home-user shop, hosted on eBay. If you install it in the standard way, you need the CD in the drive to use it, but according to the manual you can also copy everything to your hard disk.

Children type their name to log in, and the program remembers which activities they've completed. You're then offered a choice between Adventure and Activity modes. As it turns out, Adventure is what you should pick first, linking the activities into a story about Flobot's escapades in the jungle, while Activity enables you to replay the activities individually.

The six tasks range from crossing a river on a raft to making Flobot dance. Children progress from making one-off decisions, such as whether to climb, jump or swing over an obstacle, to pre-programming sequences of commands. Flobot is nicely animated, with sound effects to help hold children's attention. Each activity gets harder as you complete it, and there's a choice of two difficulty levels.

Our five-year-old managed all the tasks, though in some the initial level was too high and she had to ask older children for help. They also found Flobot interesting, so the program's appeal isn't limited to the quoted five-to-seven age range. Voiceovers explain most of what you need to know, but testers were occasionally unsure what to do next and frustrated by the voiceover responding belatedly to wrong choices after they were ready to move on.

Flobot is tightly focused on the skills it aims to develop, and fun to play.