Flip Boom! Kid Friendly Animation Software!

Toon Boom just announced the release of a new product, Flip Boom. It is an animation program with a kid friendly interface, easy to understand large buttons, and all the tools needed for animation! I decided to check out the trial version to see if this is something I would recommend to people I know. I just did a little 10 frame animation of a flower growing to get a feel for the program. Now, already using TBS, most of the keyboard shortcuts are the same, but even if it was the first time using the program, one could easily learn all the tools in almost no time. (Especially with a helpful parent nearby). The program incorporates a brush, & paint tool for drawing & coloring. An eraser tool for fixing said drawings, and a select tool that you can use to resize or move drawings, or select them to copy & paste. It also allows you to change the brush size, and if the youngster is lucky enough to have a tablet already, it supports pressure sensitivity as well. Almost forgot, it has a fairly extensive color wheel as well, 60 colors plus greyscale from white to black. You can hold 8 colors in your palette, and change them by double clicking to open up the color wheel. Flip Boom also has an onion skin feature, which is essential to animating, which allows you to see a washed out version of your previous & next drawings. It also has a feature called "Draw behind" which lets you, well... draw behind other stuff. This is extremely handy since the program only allows for one layer. With this feature you can draw something in the background wihout worrying about messing up a line or area in the foreground. It basically gives you some room for error & makes a little "coloring outside the lines" harmless. There is a easy to use, quick playback tool to preview your work, and you can view it at 3 different speeds, I'm not sure what the frame rates are, but my guess would be 12, 18, & 24, or something around there. You can export to Quicktime, SWF, and AVI as well, which is sweet. The only small knock I have is that there is no shape tool at all. I know it is meant to be simple, but I can see a kid getting a LOT of use out of circles & squares, as opposed to drawing everything freehand. Especially if they are using a mouse. It's not a huge factor & I still highly recommend this program for any kid about 12 & younger. However I would also suggest to Toon Boom that they add shapes in the future. Also 2 layers would be nice, but that may be a bit much to ask for. Anyway, here is my example of something any 6 yr old can do, & most likely do better! A quick flower growing: