I taught Processing (a Java library w/ its own IDE) to some middle- and high-school students for a week, and everyone had lots of fun from day one. It is extrem

I taught Processing (a Java library w/ its own IDE) to some middle- and high-school students for a week, and everyone had lots of fun from day one. It is extremely visual and has lots of great documentation + easy examples online. All I did was show them the basics, then every now and then went up to the board to introduce a new fun thing. We had some really, really great final projects. Everything from intricate interactive/animated scenes to complete games. Something else I loved was that many students got to apply their math knowledge naturally and in a fun way, e.g. shooting bullets at angles, rotating turrets, following parabolic paths, and even a ray caster. (As an added bonus, Processing uses a very similar IDE to Arduino.) I happened to teach another group of kids Arduino, which was fun but frustrating to some. Our final project of the week was very complicated, and only a few students finished it. I also unfortunately had many students fry parts and boards, which was frustrating when I gave so many reminders how to avoid it. (Though, young students are not exactly careful about double-checking their wiring.) My recommendation to you for middle schoolers (ages 11-14) is to use Lego Mindstorms. Largely, the middle schoolers in my class were not patient/meticulous enough yet to effectively wire, write software, and most importantly debug when something goes wrong. (After all, it could be the software, wiring, OR a bad part.)