Learning Curve: Electronics (Challenge Me! issue #1)

[Lightningsun]

So trying something new has become a bit of a hobby of mine. As soon as a question pops to mind I've just gotta find out...

The challenges I'm looking for today are in...
      Electronics^{Issue #1}

Background Knowledge
Before this post the most I know about electronics are really what a circuit board is, and by that I mean it's primary function, not how they're made. So, guess what? I know pretty much nothing. Junior electricians are shocked* by my lack of know-how in the field.
*Excuse that pun.

Why?
Interested in modifying my phone's hardware in personal project, genuine curiosity.

Objectives

• Learn about electricity
• Create a few toy circuits, there must be at least one light!
• Try out using pencil led to create circuits...

Side Objectives

• Can I create a light-up greetings card?

Your Input!
I aim to construct some basic circuits, nothing too much more than battery powered functions. But there are a few things you can help me with!

• Educate Me - Any particularly handy sources available on that beautiful thing called the internet? Pass it my way!
• Challenge Me -That's right, challenge me. Providing it's not going to kill someone or my bank account I'll most likely give it a shot - I'll send evidence, too.
• Encourage Me - Everyone loves those friendly words of encouragement - go nuts. I'll love you for it. You'll be my bestest friend for, like, ever.

Extra Note
Depending on how this goes I may just keep throwing you guys these things I want to explore in Challenge Me! issues  ;D But you must be asking why- am I just shamelessly showing off? Man, I bet I am, what a douchebag, ermahgerd come at m- no, no, no, actually I just really would like your help keeping motivated in my pursuits.

Also... Generally, I have had the feeling of time wasted, especially when extraneous circumstances saw me to resit further education twice more than I needed - I felt like one of those bad teen fiction vampires*. Ew. I'm curious about the world; I spend too much time in front of a computer screen and I want to get out there a little more! Explore what the world has to offer. The message is to try something totally new, something you'd never see yourself doing. You may be pleasantly surprised.
*You know, like those ones that would never leave school. Nobody ever wrote about the vampire that dedicated immortality to finding the cure to cancer.

Anyway, I'm not here to persuade you to try new things, but if you'd like to help me along the way by all means!  ;D

I am totally aware this can flop, but we don't know until we try.  8)

[Throndir]

I focused more on the software side of things than the hardware. XD

Though I do know we have some electrical engineers here. Agathon would be perfect to answer this stuff, but he's in inactivity mode lol.

[mrlemke]

Electronics is an area I've been meaning to study up on. Like Throndir, I was mostly interested in software. Initially, this was due to the lower cost barrier (can't beat free after all). My wife and I have thought about making our own simple PC + OS made entirely from scratch (or from parts, from scratch may be more than my wife wants to do right now).

I'm interested in seeing how that light up greeting card turns out. If I had money to devote to hobbies XD, I'd challenge you to make a robot.

[Throndir]

Light up card would be interesting. See how people make those music greeting cards as well.

[Linwelin]

I don't know how great of a resource I'll be, but I have an electrical engineering background. No job experience really, but I've got a decent hardware understanding. Making a light-up greeting card would be a delicate thing to do, making it a bit difficult, but the concept is fairly simple, so good choice for a challenge haha. If you have access to a lab with a power supply and circuit components, that'd be great. If not, there are sites to get components, most are fairly cheap.

If you want stuff for yourself for at-home experimenting, I recommend getting a breadboard, some wire, resistors, and LEDs. I'm not saying get this stuff right away, but if you find out you enjoy the tinkering, you should definitely look into it. Here's a site I used to get stuff for a design project; you can get that stuff quickly online: Digikey

I'd start going into things, but I don't want to write an essay on electronics on the forum, that'd defeat the purpose XD

Just ask basic questions about what you want to know, from what are voltage, current and resistance, to whether or not a project idea is worth trying. Once I have a good idea on what you need to know, I'll do a controlled info dump :P

[Lightningsun]

Fantastic- thank you guys for the responses :)

MrLemke: Define "Robot"? :P

and Linwelin the inventory list is a helpful one - I'm currently knee-deep in uni work but my week off is next week and I plan to start delving into this site:

http://www.madlab.org/electrnx/electrnx.html

It's a simplistic looking site, but I think simple is probably the best first step!

The site's good by the way! I'll need to see if I can find one more local though for the purposes of cheaper acquisition, but this is a nice, reliable library to browse  8)

So, next week will be most likely the first real impact of this ambition C:

Really appreciated for the help, guys  ;D
Let's try and not get me asplodeded <3