The Raspberry Pi Pico has opened the door to young experimenters thanks to the MMBasic programming language from Geoff Graham. There are several excellent videos that explain the setup and operation. The Pico is actually available for $4. The software and manual (PDF) are free to download. It is super easy to get started - 5 minutes and you're writing software that can solve problems and control I/O.

PicoMite: Running BASIC on a Raspberry Pi Pico

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cxmjy1nz6MM

PicoMiteVGA Raspberry Pi Pico Running BASIC on VGA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIK1ujslHHI

....

Yes yes, but the pico is a lot harder to program during class while looking like you are doing school work.

It's funny reading this thread where everyone is leaning towards "those dang kids and their smartphones are missing out" while ignoring things like Roblox, where entire economies are being built of the creativity of kids

I don’t want economies, I want kids to have genuine, self-directed creative outlets. At best today Roblox is baby’s first hustle culture.

You're kidding right?

Having "Robux" instead of the imaginary karma random forums, or the points different game portals had, or literally just the grind for downloads some people had somehow dashes the incredible stuff kids are inventing for play by other kids?

Kids will not somehow be ruined by having an outward reward for the creativity. It doesn't work like that.

Just to clarify, I don't mean that kids are not programming or making games in whatever form, just that they might not care to do so on a frozen-in-time TI calculator as much as used to be the case, so the "silver lining" of an unnecessarily expensive TI calculator being a child's first programming environment might not really exist anymore. As you say, kids have many other options today.