"what we were seeing was the "hacker phenomenon," that, for any given pursuit, a particular 5% of the population will jump into it naturally, while the 80% or so who can learn it in time do not find it at all natural." [0]
What you're describing is something that comes naturally to you and almost every person on this website. Kids who think that way will likely end up in engineering of some sort regardless.
The rest need this sort of guided approach to even show them that they could even possibly do this sort of thing and it helps move that percentage up.
Although, that being said I don't really think much to the Pi-Top 4 at all. You'd definitely have a more valuable empowering experience holding an actual board and plugging wires directly into it, the end result would be the same and I feel they smoothed out the wrong part of the experience.
What you're describing is something that comes naturally to you and almost every person on this website. Kids who think that way will likely end up in engineering of some sort regardless.
The rest need this sort of guided approach to even show them that they could even possibly do this sort of thing and it helps move that percentage up.
Although, that being said I don't really think much to the Pi-Top 4 at all. You'd definitely have a more valuable empowering experience holding an actual board and plugging wires directly into it, the end result would be the same and I feel they smoothed out the wrong part of the experience.
[0] http://worrydream.com/EarlyHistoryOfSmalltalk/#smalltalkAndC...