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My friend Scott gave me an Arduino Starter’s Kit on February 11, 2012 for my 37th birthday. I was immediately hooked and stayed up late breadboarding the tutorial circuits. I subscribed to Make: magazine and became a regular customer of MakerShed, SparkFun, Jameco, and Adafruit.
My first project after the tutorial exercises was Make’s Mintduino kit, an Arduino built on a breadboard that fits inside an Altoids tin.
The next day I did my first soldering project, an Arduino a prototyping board using Spikenzielab’s Prototino kit.