http://www.amazon.com/Electrical-Engineering-101-Third-Editi...
But, if you're not talking discrete components and just want something to act as more of a controller, these boards are pretty friendly:
http://beagleboard.org/ (slightly more advanced embedded controller)
http://arduino.cc/ (pretty basic and awesome community)
http://www.raspberrypi.org/ (never played with one, but another popular option)
Read:
http://www.josetteorama.com/hardware-hacking-for-ios-program...
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/featuredarticles/Ext...
You might want to come out to a SFHN event (https://www.facebook.com/groups/gosfhn/)
and Hackendo (http://hackendo.techendo.co/)
Check out sparkfun.com for parts. They have lots of stuff and most of what they sell is accessible to the programmer type. They will have micros and BLE components and whatever else you may be interested in, and a bunch of nonprofessionals are using them and talking to each other about how to use them.
You can probably find an EE friend who would work with you if you're good. In that case you might be able to combine strengths and build something awesome. I know you want to prototype right now but if you get to a "good idea" you'll want someone who knows how to build hardware.
It's not an MSP430 (it's an ARM Cortex), but still it's great that TI pumps out these low cost boards for newbie electrical engineers.
https://www.edx.org/course/utaustinx/utaustinx-ut-6-01x-embe...
There are two comparable offerings for Bluetooth LE chips (are there others? let me know): the Texas Instruments CC2541, and the Nordic Semi nRF51822. They can be purchased as development kits for $100, but the chips only cost $2-3 in larger quantities, so you could take something based on them to production without the cost being prohibitive.
I like the TI SensorTag (CC2541 based, $25). It comes with several sensors a coin cell battery, and iOS sample code, which is neat. http://www.ti.com/tool/cc2541dk-sensor
On the other hand, if you wanted to program the bluetooth device itself, the CC2541 isn't ideal. It's based on the 8-bit Intel 8051 micro controller, and TI's radio libraries only work with the very expensive and crappy IAR tool set. I bought their development kit for $100 before realizing that it's worthless without the $3000 IAR IDE :|
The Nordic Semi nRF51822 development kit is much better. Their chip is based on the ARM Cortex M0, so you get a tiny 32-bit processor. It comes with a programmable USB dongle that can be used right away, as well as a J-Link Lite CortexM-9, which can download code and do full GDB debugging on the device. You may need to be comfortable looking at schematics to figure out the other two included demo boards, however. http://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/Products/Bluetooth-R-low-energ...
If anyone knows of any other Bluetooth LE chip offerings, please let me know (I've read that Broadcom has 'announced' several chips, but I didn't see anything concrete that's shipping at the moment). The Bluegiga modules are too integrated for me, and too expensive to sprinkle them around the house for random sensing/controlling projects, but they may be easier to get started with as well.
You can pick up an iPod Touch and write an app for it that uses the Touch's sensors to do what your custom hardware could do, to get further than you might if you had to start from hardware alone. Additionally, integrating new sensors into the Touch could be done more simply via the headphone jack using an Arduino: http://www.creativedistraction.com/demos/sensor-data-to-ipho... or using Project HiJack: http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~prabal/projects/hijack/
Once you've got a version using an iPod Touch and a custom sensor working, you'd have a complete test case and prototype to develop original hardware against.
I picked one up last week before a local hackfest, but in a room of a half-dozen BLE devices (one about 10 inches away) my laptop detected zero.
Could very well be I was doing something wrong but it seems there shouldn't have to be a whole lot to do after plugging it in and loading the drivers.
I think I just got the wrong thing. (It's a Kinivo BTD-400 Bluetooth 4.0 USB adapter.)
you can learn about techBASIC at http://www.byteworks.us/Byte_Works/techBASIC.html
they claim on their website that techBASIC apps can be sold through Apple.
On the Bluetooth LE side, you CAN get a shield that sits on top of your Arduino, but it'll be bulky and power hungry. There's a company called Bluegiga that makes a BLE stack called the BLE112. Basically, it's an arduino and a BLE module in a package the size of a postage stamp. Not something you'd want to go into production with (doesn't get much below $15, regardless of quantity), but you can run it off of a coin cell battery for years, and it's got all the serial and analog interfaces you'd expect. You can get a breakout board for around $50 assembled - google 'ble112 breakout inmojo'.
Good luck! Build cool stuff.
Dave Jones runs the best EE video blog on YouTube (EEVBlog), which also has an excellent forum associated with it. He co-hosts an EE podcast called the Amp Hour with Chris Gammell. Chris Gammell has been putting together a video course on learning how to make hardware for about 6 months now, and session 1A starts tomorrow (the 20th). I highly recommend you sign up (I did!). Check out some of his YouTube videos to see if you think you'd like it (search for Contextual Electronics).
So I suppose it depends about your definition of prototyping. If you want to do breadboarding stuff, a lot of the other suggestions on here are good: start with Fritzing -> Get an Arduino -> check out the tutorials from Adafruit/Sparkfun -> Dig in more with EEVblog and AfroTechMods
But then after that, if you want to design/build your own hardware, I recommend my program (duh) or checking out other PCB type stuff from Jeremy Blum using EAGLE (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2419BD818ADB11E1) or Fedevel academy (http://www.fedevel.com/)
Good luck!
https://www.edx.org/course/utaustinx/utaustinx-ut-6-01x-embe...
http://www.youtube.com/user/jeriellsworth - she hasn't made much recently due to here kickstarter VR project. Good explanations though.
I think the first three website you may want to go to for getting familiar with the quick prototyping platforms like Arduino and Beaglebone are:
(1) http://learn.adafruit.com (2) https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials (3) http://bildr.org/
The advantage of (1) and (2) is you can quickly order parts right from their site without having to search them at different places yourself. If your goal is to eventually have a PCB house make the board, you may want to check out ladyada's comprehensive review on PCB manufacturer at http://www.ladyada.net/library/pcb/manufacturers.html. Also Sparkfun has a series of very insightful tutorials on SMD soldering. For (3) I personally highly recommend it for its component oriented tutorials even though it doesn't seem to add new articles anymore.
I think the quickest way to get yourself the skills is to set a goal. Create a wish list of functions that the device must have. Then read or watch only the relevant tutorials. If you have a specific goal, then the above mentioned websites should work very well for you.
To share my experience, I was able to design my own schematic and board on KiCAD, program the firmware, and have the PCB factory make a fully functional prototype that works with iPhone, with these resources in 24 weekends.
If what something even smaller you can try out the TinyCircuits that I work for: http://tiny-circuits.com/
Those use the same hardware as an Arduino uno. calvinthedestroyer
The supported chips are pretty powerful and a Bluetooth dongle is available.
The development boards start at about $12 but can go up to $100. The bare chips from NXP themselves are $6.
The LandTiger board even has a 320x240 pixel LCD touch screen display and is < $100.
Amazing really.
I went to Codemash this year and a gentleman had some interesting BluetoothLE demos on Android.
I'd also recommend getting an Arduino and building projects with it.