New Project

Lets go with Arduino and proto board for first round

Supplies

Arduino which fits a proto board. Some are designed for this, but most not. Typically by building with the pin headers down instead of up will let you plug into a protoboard. The standared was sehees to be to fit into Shields or auxiliary boards.

RBBB - Really Bare Bones Board - Freeduino - Arduino-Compatible processor ?? about 13 bucks, rs232 need a port cable and converter maybe -- page lists a bundle at about 24 bucks which has everything? You need only one set of these even if you have several Arduinos you may want to look at [1]

• protoboard

• protoboard jumper wire ( can be salvaged from phone or similar cable )

• LED's ( just low power, any particular color )*

• LED resistors about 200 --- 400 ohms

Tools

Computer -- almost any operating system Serial port -- USB or RS232

Needle nose plyers ( harbor freight, at about 4 bucks? )

Small Diagonal Cutters or other wire cutters ( harbor freight, at about 4 bucks? )

Wire stripper ( harbor freight, at about 4 bucks? )

Solder Iron with fine tip and solder ( cheap is cheap, get a good one with plated tip and thermostatic control )

Multimeter can be pretty basic ( harbor freight, at about 4 bucks when on sale )

Software and Downloads

• Arduino Development environment -- see [2]

• Good to learn a little bit about C and/or go over the Arduino tutorials

You can try writing programs even befor you have your hardware, and why not. It may take a few hours to get the hang of it.