Academics
TraceForge
Read a short program, predict what it prints, then step through the real trace — line by line, watching each variable change — to see exactly how code runs in your head. A read-before-run coding lab. Ages 9–14.
▶ Play it nowBuilt for sittings of about 20 minutes on the screen. That is our design budget, not a measurement.
Meet your mentor
Every Spark & Anvil app has a friendly mentor character that demonstrates, asks, and patiently scaffolds learning. On-device AI personalizes the mentor's responses to your kid's progress — never connecting to a server, never collecting data.
#0369a1 Characters who teach
Meet the cast
TraceForge's readers each keep one habit: you read a program first, and they show you how to trace it.
Scamper
(The one you teach) - runs a program the moment she sees it, before reading it — you teach her to trace first
Jotter
keeps a little table of every value, line by line
Fencepost
counts a loop's edges — the first turn and the last
Signpost
checks the condition at every if, then follows one path
What's inside
Learning goal
Read a short program, predict what it prints, then step through the real trace — line by line, watching each variable change — to see exactly how code runs in your head. A read-before-run coding lab. Ages 9–14.
On-device AI mentor
FoundationModels-powered hints, feedback, and adaptive difficulty — all running locally.
How TraceForge handles your kid's data
- ✅ All progress, settings, and AI-generated content stays on the device
- ✅ No analytics, no tracking, no third-party SDKs
- ✅ Free — no ads, no in-app purchases
- ✅ No personal information collected from children — in line with COPPA (updated by the 2026 FTC amendments)
- ✅ No chat with strangers — play-together rooms use a short code and preset emotes, never typed messages
For you, the grown-up
Spark & Whetstone, our free site for grown-ups, tells what TraceForge teaches in a short course of its own.