So, I am a long time reader of this as well as other diy electronic blogs. I work with a gentleman who has a masters in EE and well a great source of information, he makes each of his projects an exercise in patience and extreme planning, lots of paper and simulations before he builds anything. I figure it wasn't worth my time to do in to the detail he did. I have ideas and want to see if they are possible. Everyone else was having fun plugging parts together and making cool things.

I tok the plunge. I ordered a bunch of pieces and parts from China and Grob's Basic Electronics (I saw this posted as a great read / reference by many out there and I do concur). While waiting for the parts I read and got the basics from Grob's and more reading on the sites and forums.

The soldering iron and Simon Says showed up first (it actually came from the states). That went pretty well, save I messed up the tip on the soldering iron by time I was done, but was able to save it.

Once the parts rolled in I started with Arduino style 'hello world', then moved on to 3 LEDs, traffic light, then added switches, then started to play with the LCD screen. While tinkering I kept on thinking what my first project was going to be. I got both of my kids interested in chess over the summer, so what not make a chess clock and hopefully spark their interest as well.

So if you like, follow my adventure.