Hello,
Brand new to Ardiuno. Fairly new to electronics and programming.
Have a chromebook Asus C204EE
Can anyone reccomend the best starter kit for someone with a toaster as a computer?
What is best and second best kit?
Just my opinion, but I don't think there is a "best starter kit". I got into Arduino after a lot of years in real time embedded systems, so I had a good idea of what the various Arduino products were.
There are official Arduino kits that include various sensors (light, sound, heat etc) and output devices (LEDs, buzzer, displays etc). They also include guidance material to get you going.
There are other kits on ebay (and other sites too) that have 40+ different sensors and modules. It's not clear (at least in the listings I looked at) if there are any tutorials for these kits, or whether you are on your own. With that many items in the kit, there may be quite a few that you just don't use.
One project that I think is a nice introduction is the traffic light simulator. You can buy small boards with the red, yellow and green LEDs on them. There's also plenty of examples out there on how to control the traffic lights from Arduino - usually an UNO.
Do you have any specific projects in mind that you would like to create using Arduino?
@marioc87,
I have disagreed with your 2 flags to the moderators. Both replies are from people trying to help you, please engage with them and help them to help you. If you don't find a particular reply quite what you were hoping for you can politely clarify to the person trying to help what it was you wanted. The people trying to help are volunteers helping you for free, please try to respect that.
Thank you.
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your computer(toaster lol) really has no relevance on which starter kit to buy. As long as it can run the Arduino IDE which you can download Here. than you are good to go.
As far as which starter kit to buy, it really comes down to personal preference.
I like the genuine Arduino kits just to support them but they are a bit pricey.
The Elegoo kits are considered good kits. Any of them will do, just pick one that fits your budget/desires. All of the Elegoo kits come with tutorials to help you along.
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I bought one such bag full of various sensors, LEDs and more. Not a single line of instruction. Some devices are even hard to see what the devise is.
As You say, "support" in the shape of guided experiments is recommended.
I started with an Arduino Starter Kit for Students. It came with the Uno R3 and resistors and such but it also came with a very detailed book that shows you how to set up each project, and the code you need to make the project work. Much of this code is in the Arduino IDE under File/ Examples/ Starter_Kit Basic_kit/ chapter number. It got me going in a week.
Opinion: unless used in a classroom/on-line tutor environment, buy stuff to build projects that interest you.
I have just purchased - on Aliexpress so there will be a wait - a "Sensor kit" as it seemed to be a reasonable price for the parts. Incidentally, that link itself is quite a plausible description of the modules if not compete instructions.
But that is the only Arduino "kit" I have ever purchased as such.
I strongly advise against purchasing a UNO except for the reason Hutkikz cites, to support the Arduino project.
Unless you propose to use a "shield" for a specific project that fits the UNO (or Mega 2560), a Nano is far more practical. With pins fitted, it mounts in a "MB102" solderless breadboard which permits multiple connections to each pin, or it can mount on a "sensor expansion" (so buy one) or "terminal header", and when you ever construct a permanent project, it can be soldered to stripboard or a custom PCB.
The Nano is just more practical overall. Buy two or three (or more) clones.
There are other components needed to experiment with, notably LEDs, resistors, capacitors, jumper wires and the modules mentioned (which mostly use servo cables to connect to your breadboard or a sensor expansion board). There are bundles of these which can be ordered, generally cheaper in total than a large "kit".
I used an Elegoo kit myself as I've found the company's products to be good values.
As to the toaster issue the IDE shouldn't be spending a lot of time with complex calculations so you should be fine with what you have. There are people using the IDE on Raspberry Pis, for example, and Pis are probably even more toaster-like than your Chromebook.
I purchased an Elegoo kit to get started.
It comes with a broad array of things to interface with the Arduino, from LEDs to stepper motors to standard electrical motors to LCD displays to relays.
There are 22 lessons you can follow that will absolutely teach you the basics of Arduino.
I'd say that if you are starting from nothing then that Elegoo starter kit mentioned in post #11 looks good and cheap. Expect, however, to soon grow out of it, at the latest when you start building more durable projects on solder board and start using aliexpress, Mouser and other sources of components.
as noted above, kits are for classrooms and teachers.
what is worth having:
Except ...
Half a dozen of these sitting (in a Hommus tub 
) in front of me. I honestly cannot see of what use they are! Can you explain?
The expansion port sensor shield with the Nano is certainly useful, and I am not sure whether the I²C module is particularly useful unless you have a number of I²C accessories.
But the "Breadboard Power Supply Module" is misleadingly specified regarding the capability of the regulator which can only deliver nearly 700 mA for a vvery short period before overheating and shutting down - similarly to the regulator on the Nano itself. So the inly useful way of using it is to use a male-male USB cable to connect it to a "phone charger" as a source of regulated 5 V.
Blockquote I am not sure whether the I²C module is particularly useful unless you have a number of I²C accessories. < Blockquote
the fact that it is marked I2C does not mean it must be I2C. it can also be used for SPI, 3.3 VDC, and who does not need 8 extra ground or 5VDC ports?
Can you run the Arduino IDE on it?
I have with a Raspberry Pi 3B+ with 1G and a 4B w/2G.
For the price of the extra good starter kit you learn also poor purchasing ways.
You want a breadboard or two, a medium and a long one.
You want an assortment bag of colored leds. Save RGB leds for later!
You want an assortment pack of resistors with 10+ of each value, one must be 220 ohms.
You want an assortment of capacitors.
You want an assortment of heat-shrink tube in size and color. Heat shrink tube is what you cover bare wire and solder joins with, not electrical tape (ever!). You cut a piece a bit longer than what to cover and slide it up the wire you will solder and when that is done, slide the tube over the bare spot and wave the hot iron underneath, the tube shrinks down hard and you have a professional cover. Using colored heatshrink you can mark wires for your own use.
Assortments are cheaper per part and give you a range of similar parts.
Here's why I say buy "bulk". I shopped for power transistors to run 12V led strings and found a deal, for $9-something I got 60 logic level N-type FET's. I could also get <10 of the same IRLZ44N for 90 cents each. I paid 14.5 cents each for only $10, a good meal and have so many I gave some away.
You want DuPont Cables to peel jumpers off. You want 1 with pins on both ends, 1 with pins on one end and sleeves on the other and 1 with sleeves on both ends.
Jumper going from Arduino pin hole to a pin on a module needs a jumper with pin for the arduino hole and sleeve for the pin on the module. Each cable has 40 wires, the rainbow color ones let you pick color.
You may need buttons or switches. I just ground jumpers.
Most of beginning Arduino is possible with leds and buttons while learning enough C and DC electronics to do things with leds and buttons.
You want some tools too. A multimeter, small wire cutters and a wire stripper, a light soldering iron, lead-free solder if possible and solder flux.
Consider that the better starter kits run $100+ and include an Arduino... you want to get an Uno R3 with socket, so that you can put new bootloaded AVR chips in it and stop worrying about burning an IO pin.
All of the parts above are basic and over time you'll want to get more parts. You'll need little parts bins or boxes with dividers, I picked up clear plastic with snap lid parts boxes at Harbor Freight for $4 each, they have 30 compartments. I have 1 for resistors, 1 for caps, 1 for leds and detectors and 1 I haven't filled yet. And then I have boxes of modules and power plugs. For a while I bought factory direct from Hong Kong.
Until Covid, it has been cheaper to buy Nano clone - which conveniently fit in a solderless breadboard which a UNO does not - than replacement ATmega328 chips. You can generally get several for the price of a UNO. 
I started my first project 6 months ago. Really the first time I have been involved in electronics and just last month I completed the design and fabrication of my first PCB board. Because my applications are all automotive, I chose a kit that had a board that would run at up to 20V input. The UNO is a great board to learn on but had a maximum voltage limit of 12V. The UNO also is probably the most popular board so it has the most support. Therefore I chose a kit that with an UNO compatible board that would run with inputs up to 20V. Keep in mind 20V input is not that big a deal as a buck converter can easily be used. But for the sake of being quick to connect without fuss to a 14V power supply and trying things out, I found the Yourduino Robo Red to be the Swiss army knife of boards to start learning with. It also comes with 2000ma output power which could come in handy. It is also switchable 3.3V/5.0V. Despite knowing that I would not use this board in an actual application, it was perfect to learn on. In the end I chose the Arduino Nano 33 BLE.
As other's have stated these teaching kits, really don't have everything you need, only those specific parts required for the instructional examples presented with the kits. But those parts do come in handy especially the jumper wires and header pins. And you never know when your going to need a 10K pot.
Whether you purchase a kit or just a board, I would also recommend purchasing a breed board, assortments of resistors, capacitors, polarized capacitors, transistors, diodes. All the assortments I found on Amazon are comprehensive enough to do just about anything I come across.
I personally recommend the kits, if your really new to this like I was because starting with the examples is worth while.
Also note that I do not recommend any of those cheep Amazon components for final products. I just use them for prototypes and then once I have it all figured out I purchase quality components from companies like Digikey, Mouser, Newark etc
You can see the starter kit I purchased and recommend below.
The proprietor of Makerspace @terryking228 shows up here from time to time.
Haven't heard from him recently, but definitely a very good recommendation. 