EE, like programming, depends on effective modularization. With hardware whilst you can design top-down, the implementations, especially whilst you are learnin

EE, like programming, depends on effective modularization. With hardware whilst you can design top-down, the implementations, especially whilst you are learning, needs to be bottom-up. Like TDD, you implement and test each module before you integrate it into a larger module and test that, rinse and repeat ... When designing hardware you need to keep in mind how the software will interact with it. And when designing software you might want to think about how the hardware could help you simplify the design. A general word of advice, keep the hardware as unspecialized as possible. Changing code is easier than rebuilding the board. You may wish to consider starting with an Arduino kit and breadboard stuff incrementally. That way you'll get a feel for how SW and HW interact.