What board for a begginer.... ?

Hey all... Saw some cool projects using solenoids as drums on you tube the other day. I've been hunting around for info on the controller and wound up here. I've been using the Basic Stamps... and the Scott Edwards SSCII for a few years to control servos. I'm really interested in the ardunio board. I just saw the robodunio... I guess I'd like to know what board to get for controlling servos. Does the robodunio do the same things as the other models ? I see a few different model boards available can somebody give a quick breakdown of twaht the differences are and maybe where I can order one ? I'm going to order one tonight !!!!! thanks for the help, C Mitchell

If you have been using the Basic Stamps, you already have some components and solderless breadboards to play with, right? Then you don't need any generic electronics starter kit or tools? If you did want a starter kit for basic electronics, google "Sparkle Labs Electronics Kit".

To get started in Arduino land, I'd go with a plain old Arduino Duemilanove, not a specialized Arduino-like board. No offense at all to the awesome Roboduino project and all the others, but just start with a plain jane kit and decide what you want from there.

The variants either use the word Arduino or they say they're "compatible." True Arduino names are mostly different form factors or historical versions. The Diecimilia is still popular so if you find it, great. The Duemilanove is the current board. The NG are actually fairly outdated.

There are a number of shields suitable for servo / motor driving, or you might whip up something on your own with some mosfets. Once you have the basic Arduino development stuff working, decide what you want to drive. Maybe Roboduino makes more sense if you have a LOT of motors in mind.

Adafruit offers a nice "starter kit" for Arduino too, and is a good place to browse for some of the types of shields available. SparkFun, FunGizmos, Maker Shed, and others have more to browse.

If you are going to drive servos, you will want a servo controller board like the SSCII that you have already. Using an arduino to drive servos is kind of wasteful - it can do so much more! But not if it's updating servos every 20 ms!
I'm using a Pololu micro serial servo controller (which has an SSCII mode, btw). A pic of it mounted to the arm I'm driving it with is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24299497@N05/3128621919/ but it is hard to make out 'cause it is so tiny (literally postage-stamp size).

Using an arduino to drive servos is kind of wasteful - it can do so much more! But not if it's updating servos every 20 ms!

eustace, I disagree.

It is possible to drive up to eight servos using hardware interrupts without the need for the foreground sketch to do any refreshing, see this thread for details:
http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1230479947

A dedicated servo board is nice if you can justify the cost. But its surprising how much the arduino can do when full advantage is made of its capabilities.

Thanks for the feedback. I can certainly see that the arduino is capable of amazing things and I've really grown used to sscII (seems like an antique). I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of my arduino to play with it. I ordered an Adafruit Proto Shield (v.5) and a Duemilanove form adafruit.
I've been asking a lot of people some very "new guy" questions mostly because I'm so excited to get statred. I'll be asking many more questions in the time to come. Thanks again for the help.