One good project if you're familiar with Arduino is to build your own AVR based Arduino clone. Some thorough examples: * http://makezine.com/projects/make-36-b

One good project if you're familiar with Arduino is to build your own AVR based Arduino clone. Some thorough examples: * http://makezine.com/projects/make-36-boards/make-your-own-dmn-board-part-1-layout/ http://makezine.com/projects/make-36-boards/make-your-own-dm... * https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/using-eagle-schematic https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/using-eagle-schematic * https://learn.adafruit.com/boarduino-kits/overview https://learn.adafruit.com/boarduino-kits/overview It's also good to know the lower level concepts of directly programming an AVR: * http://hackaday.com/2010/10/23/avr-programming-introduction/ http://hackaday.com/2010/10/23/avr-programming-introduction/ * http://highlowtech.org/?p=1695 http://highlowtech.org/?p=1695