In this article, we present CTRL_SPACE: a design for a software environment with companion hardware, developed to introduce preliterate children to basic computational concepts by means of an animatronic face, whose individual features serve as an analogy for a programmable object. In addition to presenting the environment, this article briefly discusses the reasons and methods used to reach a set of guidelines, which were in turn used to develop the prototype system that CTRL_SPACE is based on. (Contains 5 figures.)