Getting started with Arduino

Communities Science, Engineering, & Security
1

I'm interested in getting into hardware hacking, programming and making, so I have decided some Arduino projects would be a good relatively inexpensive way to get started. With that being said what I am looking for tips/tricks/suggestions for almost every aspect of the platform, but I do have a few priority subjects I want to get started with.

First, I am looking to get a sub $100 (the cheaper the better) kit with an UNO board, various ressistors, LEDs and a breadboard to get started, but suggestions for good sites to get parts and boards are welcome.

Second, any suggestions for fairly simple projects to get started would be great, I'm mainly looking for something with a good balance of time, simplicity and how much I will learn from that single project. Obviously the complicated, obscure and ridiculous are set for a later date when I get the hang of it but for now I'm learning.

Third, I need suggestions for good learning rescources like books, sites, forums and anything else you can think of that would help the learning process.

As I said any tips and tricks are welcome and hopefully with enough info this thread can be useful for everyone not just myself.

2

Have you ever soldered something? When I started learning about electronics, I disassambled old electronic devices, like DVD players and radios. I asked my friends to give me the stuff they did not need. You can get a lot of interesting parts from those devices to play around. Just get a simple soldering kit and get going.  

Arduino has a big community. Just look into a forum.  There are a lot of example projects, which you can rebuild. This is probably the easiest way to get an understanding of how things work.

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I'm good on soldering that part wont be an issue I grew up taking stuff apart to see how it works and spent alot of time with tweaking RC cars swapping motors adding lights that sort of thing. Arduino doesent typically require much if any soldering but for whats required I'm well covered, it's the programming part that I'm not great with, which is what I'm really looking to learn from this.