Atmel Avr microcontroller..
Arduinos are the hot item when comes to microcontrollers right now but there are others that will still do quite a bit and do it on less power. For example you can control your sprinkler system, have a burglar alarm system, and many other projects that will all run off of just a yard solar lamp. A burglar alarm system that does not run off the car's battery is a real plus. Virtually impossible to disarm unless you know where it is and can get to it before it goes off. There are tons of projects for the Atmel 2313 (and related) chips in particular. You could make a toy for your child's holiday gift such as a homemade robot. That adds meaning to the gift given to give of yourself. Another thing I like about the micro-controller is you do not need some fancy setup to program it. You can virtually use an old parallel cable and a computer with a parallel port that can run the free development package). The parallel cables are discarded by zillions. We made a special ...