Looponi at a glance: who it's for, what it teaches, what it costs
The key facts about Looponi: a free app that teaches algorithms and coding to children from first grade, with no ads and no account, for Android and the browser.
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This page gathers the key information about Looponi in one place.
What it is
Looponi is an app that teaches algorithms and coding to children. Here a program is a board of blocks joined by pipes. In other words, it is a flowchart that the child builds themselves. When it runs, a glowing token travels through the blocks one by one, and next to it you can see the variables change.
Facts
| Topic | Fact |
|---|---|
| Who it's for | children from first grade (about age 7) up to high school, and adult hobbyists too |
| Price | free, with no ads and no in-app purchases |
| Account | not needed; only useful for saving boards to the cloud |
| Devices | Android phones and tablets, a browser on a computer |
| Internet | lessons and boards work offline |
| Languages | Polish, English, German, French; the narrator reads instructions in Polish only |
| Publisher | two71, contact: kontakt@two71.io |
What it teaches
- Ideas: order of steps, decision, loop, variable, list, subprogram, recursion.
- Skills: predicting the result before a run, tracing a program step by step, finding bugs, testing a program with tricky inputs.
- Algorithms: Euclid's GCD, binary search, sorting, Towers of Hanoi, a maze with the right-hand rule, leap year, image compression, a fractal tree.
- A bridge to code: the same board written out in Python; the current line lights up together with the token.
Tracks by age
- Little Ones (grades 1–3): pictures instead of words, a narrator, a story with Byte the robot; along the way, addition, subtraction, rhythms and money.
- Explorers (grades 4–6): variables, conditions with “and” and “or”, loops with a counter, finding bugs.
- Builders (grades 7–8): classic algorithms, lists, sorting, binary search, recursion.
- High School (16+) and Adult: the whole course at your own pace.
For parents and teachers
- Hints come in stages: first a question, then the block is pointed out, and finally a fragment. Never the whole solution.
- A mistake ends with a hint, not a punishment.
- A parent sets the track, the daily play limit and the revision tasks; the settings are protected by a PIN.
- Once a day, one earlier task comes back (spaced learning).
- The lessons for grades 1–3 practise what Poland's new core curriculum for grades 1–3 requires: algorithms in graphic form and block-based coding.
Frequently asked questions
What is Looponi?
Looponi is a free app that teaches algorithms and algorithmic thinking to children from first grade. The child builds an algorithm from blocks on a board as a flowchart, runs it and traces it step by step.
How much does Looponi cost?
Nothing. Looponi is free, with no ads and no in-app purchases.
Which devices does Looponi run on?
On Android phones and tablets, and in a browser on a computer. Lessons and boards work without an internet connection.
How is Looponi different from Scratch?
In Scratch a child creates their own games and animations. In Looponi they learn algorithms: they build a flowchart, predict the result, trace the run and look for bugs, all the way up to classic algorithms and Python code.