LEGO Mindstorms is a really good line imo. Maybe higher level on the software side, but is great for what you're describing- getting beginners interested in coding through robotics.
I got started on LEGO Mindstorms in high school (circa 2005).
At the time the fun thing to do was to have them navigate a maze. First an incredibly small and simple one; one that could be done by manually programming LEFT-RIGHT-FORWARD-etc. Then a more complicated one with walls (using the bump sensor) to show the left-hand algorithm, then one where the "walls" were tape on the ground (using the optical sensor).
All in all it shows that yes, you can program to do a specific task OR with some abstraction and algorithms you can solve every instance of a problem. All while teaching the basics of if-else-then, loops, etc.