Absolute beginner..How do I get started?

As Boffin1 said, by the board and go find some of the many tutorials.

Almost anything you can imagine has been done, and is documented somewhere on he mighty Internet.

As a beginner one of the hardest things is to know what to search for. But if you have specific sensors you know you are going to use then chance are that someone else has alredy used it and documentde it.