Well it was to save on shipping. But I got impatient and built my own Arduino starter kit so I can start learning the basics.
If your curious I pretty much have the parts figured out for the first breadboard version:
Duemilanove - $29.95
Wall Adapter - $6.00
Micro SD - $44.95 - [u]Breakout Board for DOSonCHIP FAT16 FAT32 uSD Module - BOB-08215 - SparkFun Electronics vs SparkFun microSD Transflash Breakout - BOB-00544 - SparkFun Electronics or SparkFun SD/MMC Card Breakout - BOB-12941 - SparkFun Electronics... I understand the difference between the two at a high level but if somebody would care to explain the difference in detail about how to integrate the later two (cheaper) versions I would greatly appreciate it.
GPS Unit - $34.99 http://www.parallax.com/Store/Sensors/CompassGPS/tabid/173/ProductID/644/List/0/Default.aspx?SortField=ProductName,ProductName - Thanks to Coding Badly
I was going to use a GPS shield but I'm now against it because of how I may need to orient the GPS unit in the case.
SD Card - $10 Start with 2GB
Buttons (2 minimum) - $2.00
Buzzer - $2.00
Battery - $5.00 Going to start with 9v and move to this http://www.liquidware.com/shop/show/BP/Lithium+Backpack
Otter Box - ~$20 not sure what size yet http://www.otterbox.com/waterproof-cases/
I left the display for last because I had an idea when buying parts to play around with early on.
Initially I was going to go with this LCD SparkFun Serial Graphic LCD 160x128 - LCD-08884 - SparkFun Electronics but after thinking about what I really need/want I think I can get away with the following:
1x 10 LED Bard Graph (at bottom) - $0.75 LED Display's
2x 4 Digit LCD Display - $5.50 LCD Display's
So thats $11.75 vs $69.95... granted I probably need to add some parts so I can fit all of these components onto the main board. i'm thinking like this Arduino Playground - LCD3wires ... any thoughts?
The plan is to try and come in under $200 for the breadboard version. And then maybe start using even smaller components and get it under $150 for following revisions. That would be a savings of 50% off the commercial product. I have a lot of friends who race on other boats as potential clients if I can get this to work correctly. Granted that is WAY off in the future as I have a lot of coding to learn.