You've probably heard lots about Arduino. But if you don't know what it is, or how you can use it to do all sorts of cool things, then this fun and easy workshop is for you. Arduino is an amazingly powerful tool that is very simple to learn to use. It was designed so that artists and non-geeks can start from nothing, and make something cool happen in less than 90 minutes. Yet, it is powerful enough so that uber-geeks can use it for their projects as well. This workshop is easy enough for total newbies to learn all you need to know to get going on an Arduino. Participants will learn everything needed to play with electronics, and use a solderless breadboard to make a TV-B-Gone remote control to turn off TVs in public places - a fun way to learn Arduino (and electronics) basics.

https://wiki.hope.net/index.php?title=Arduino_For_Total_Newbies