1 x Arduino short of a project
Ok, so I couldn’t wait for Tinker.it’s Arduino Starter Kits to come back into stock – I’m so impatient. I also didn’t want to pay $40 for US shipping (after having to admit I overspend on ‘gadgetry’), so I sourced an Arduino board from coolcomponents.co.uk, and hit Maplin for just about everything else. As this is my first ever foray into ‘physical computing’, I decided that I needed, well, everything. So I went and bought a Jump Wire Kit, a breadboard kit with banana sockets for power, a regulated switchable DC power supply, about a trillion LEDs, resistors, capacitors and anything else that looked ‘electronicy’.
I also bought Physical Computing and Making Things Work – two excellent books.
So all this stuff has arrived, but my Arduino, ordered on the same day, hasn’t. So right now I’m like most kids who are stuck indoors looking out at the snow: I really, really just wanna play! 
Hi Derek. Thanks for your comment. I’ve fixed the link to coolcomponents.co.uk, thanks
I did get my Arduino in the end, and I love it. In fact, I’ve written several articles on the projects I am undertaking already (check out the Arduino category of my blog). Another supplier you could try is SK Pang (www.skpang.co.uk). Direct link here. They are out of stock until April 9, though.
I use SK Pang alot when I want to purchase official Sparkfun parts – they’re the only stockist I could find that were also reasonably priced.
Thanks for stopping by, let me know how you get on!
I can’t believe it – I too am very impatient and found your site after being unable to wait for Tinker kits to come back into stock. I went to coolcomponents.co.uk (your link is missing the http by the way, so it links to your blog – 404) and they…….are on holiday! So can’t order one from there either!
Has your Arduino arrived yet? How have you got on with it?