If you like making things, then you will love .NET Gadgeteer. You can create many interesting projects by just plugging together components and writing a few lines of programming code. Check out this upcoming hands-on webcast presented by Simon Monk, author of Getting Started with .NET Gadgeteer: Thursday, November 8, 2012 (free registration).
Recently, I had an opportunity to get early access to a new hardware system from Microsoft. Gadgeteer is a way for people to rapidly build devices, program them and then even build enclosures around the projects they make. On Wednesday morning, almost none of my students had ever written a computer program, and by Friday afternoon, every one had the opportunity to write a program that would control output hardware based on the input of sensors that they had built.
Colin Miller has been working on the Gadgeteer system for the .Net environment.
