Robot Steps
Robot Steps is a free coding game for kids, about ages 4 to 9, with no typing and no reading of code. Peabody the dog stands on a small grid and a bone sits somewhere on it. The child lays arrow cards in a row, such as step forward, turn left and turn right, then taps Go. Peabody walks the cards out one at a time, and the card being run lights up so the child can see which card did what. If the row is wrong, nothing bad happens: Peabody bonks into a wall, sits down with a little dizzy swirl, and the child changes a card and tries again.
In the last 30 days, players opened Robot Steps about 31 times and played it for about 1 hour in all. These are Peabody's own counts, with no names in them.
Coding puzzle · steps, loops and ifs. Get Peabody to the bone. A wrong row is fine: Peabody bonks softly and sits down, and you change a card and try again.
Coding, with questions from K to 5th grade. For ages 4 and up (rated E). Controls: tap or click. Needs a mouse? No: tap. On a school Chromebook, it runs in Chrome with nothing to install. No sign-up, no ads and nothing to buy.
To print and go with it: a Robot Steps score sheet.
Robot Steps climbs five rungs, thirty levels in all. Rung one is one to three steps in a straight line, so a row of cards is just an order of things to do. Rung two adds turns. Rung three gives the child fewer card spaces than steps, so they have to find the Repeat card, which does a little group of cards again and again. That is a loop, and the game says so in a small tag the first time one is used: "You made a loop!". Rung four adds a Bump? card, which asks a question, is the way blocked, and turns only if it is. That is an if, and its tag says "You made an if!". Rung five is a set of mazes that look different but all work with the same short rule, so a child sees that a general rule can beat remembering one path.
A Step through button runs one card for each tap, which is how a child finds their own bug: they watch exactly which card sent Peabody the wrong way. The first level of each rung also asks, in three big boxes, which card goes in the one empty space, starting with an easy choice. A wrong box only fades, and the right one goes in. There are no lives, no timers, no red marks and no scores. Robot Steps is made for a phone held upright, with big taps only.
These are the ideas behind every program: doing things in order, saying a repeated thing once, and doing something only when a question is answered yes. The words loop and if come after the idea, as a small label, so a child can say what they made. Robot Steps uses no AI, plays in the browser with no download, sign-up or ads, and keeps only which levels are done, on the device.
Is Robot Steps free?
Yes. Robot Steps is free to play in the browser, with no sign-up, no download and no ads.
What age is it for?
About 4 to 9. It uses tapping only and no typing. The early levels are one to three steps in a line, and the later ones have loops and ifs, so older children keep finding something new.
What does my child learn from it?
The ideas under every program: putting steps in order, repeating a group of steps with a loop, and choosing with an if. It also teaches finding a bug by stepping through one card at a time.
More like this: games for 5 year olds, free kids' games, things to do when you're bored.
For grown-ups: Made for a phone held upright. No lives, no timer and no score; only the levels you have done are kept, on this device.
Also try: Deep Dig, Cell Break.
For grown-ups: Peabody has no ads, not one, and nothing to sell your child. The Kids Pick, an independent kids' directory, rates its games 90/100. See what other free kids' sites load · Grown-ups, sign in · Already have a profile?
Steps · level 1 of 30
Which card goes here?