I have a similar background to yours. I program Java professionally and have iOS and web apps as side projects. I think the first three website you may want to

I have a similar background to yours. I program Java professionally and have iOS and web apps as side projects. 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 http://learn.adafruit.com (2) https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials https://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials (3) http://bildr.org/ 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 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.