Adafruit Industries has some wonderful kits/plans (Score 1)

I attended the Microcontroller Monday classes at the local hackerspace, HacDC (http://hacdc.org/) where we worked from plans found on Lady Ada's sites (http://www.ladyada.net/make/usbtinyisp/ and http://www.adafruit.com/).

The other thing to do is get started with US FIRST Robotics (http://www.usfirst.org/) established by the inventor of the Segway, Dean Kamen to "inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership." according to the web site.