While this kit has everything you need to get started the manual is a little out of whack.
It includes references to examples that don't exist in the actual software.

My biggest gripe with this is that the plastic board plate where you attach the breadboard and Arduino brings only 2 screws, which are both metal, and too big for the plastic plate, which means when you thread them through you have to apply significant force, which is scary considering if you slip you could put a hole in the Arduino PCB. Maybe plastic screws and bigger holes would be better?

The servo wire colors are non-standard. Still works, and you can figure them out, but they will throw you off the first time.

A minor improvement I would do is to include a Blue and Green LEDs in the same style as the Red and Yellow ones, so you can practice using RGB values without the RGB LED (which are quirky in some colors).

I otherwise completely recommend this for Arduino First-Timers and Beginners.

I'm a scientist working at a U.S. university, and bought this because I'm interested to see what the Arduino could do. What an amazing kit this is. The Arduino is a pretty incredible little device and at the price it is very good value. I bought the starter kit because coming with a breadboard and components is a very nice easy way to get started. In fact the way the Vilros board screws everything together will make this a really nice little development device for use in the future.

I would also say that the instruction booklet that comes with it very nicely describes how to make up the example circuits and makes this a perfect science project for older teens (perhaps in the 16+ bracket). As an instructional device it gives you the opportunity to learn computer programing, electronics, and the extremely useful input/output computer electronics (commonly known in the trade as Analogue to Digital convertors, and Digital Input/Output).

The kit comes with everything you need to get started including examples and computer code to demonstrate functions and run the projects. Very nicely done.

While the lessons were pretty good, the kit contained some damaged parts that I didn't find until the later parts of the book. The crankshaft of the small motor that comes with the kit was broken inside the assembly, leaving you to be able to hear the motor running but not be able to power anything with it. In addition, the soldered wire on the motor came loose before the lesson was over. Additionally, the included relay wouldn't fully close, causing the lesson on relay to be mostly a bust.

While I think the kit teaches a lot through an elegant set of lessons, the quality of the materials (or the packaging) should probably be reviewed to ensure all components make it safely to the customer.

As some one brand new to Arduino, I am really enjoying the step-by-step, almost foolproof experiments in this kit. They walk you through gradually advancing concepts with easy to read instructions and clear illustrations.

A couple of notes:
Study the content of the sketches (code) closely and keep notes. Understand what makes each work before you move on to the next. Useful snippets can be copy/pasted to a text file for later use. Grow your own library of useful sketches, in addition to those already provided with the Uno and this kit.

If an experiment offers you a more advanced concept challenge at the end of it (as many do), do some online research and see if you can find something similar that had already been done. Study their code and see how you can incorporate it to meet the challenge.

Example: One experiment has you connect a temperature sensor then display the readings in a terminal window on your PC. At the end, it challenges you to wire an LED that lights when a certain temperature (set by you) is reached. In a short time, with a little digging online and some reference back to previous experiments, I had not one, but two LEDs lighting at different temperature levels (child's play for someone experienced, man on the moon for this noob). Results were added to my growing library of sketches for later use.

Get a multi-compartment storage box to sort and keep track of all the components. As you add more later (and you will) they will all be in one handy location.

Finally, mount the Arduino on the base first, then verify the orientation of the breadboard (the square with all the holes in it) to the Arduino before you stick it to the base (follow the pictures in the book). Mounting it backwards with cause you to have to use longer wires to reach the Arduino, or use different holes on the breadboard than what the instructions tell you.

As an electrical engineer fresh out of college, I wanted to be able to continue to play around with electronics without having to learn all the syntax and write the crazy amount of code that comes with a typical micro controller. In addition, I did not want to have to buy an expensive debugger that works half of the time and is probably made in China.

With that said I bought this product and immediately loved it. For something like analog to digital conversion the 20 lines of code needed for a standard atmel chip are reduced to two easy line with very little setup. It took me about 10 minutes to get the LCD and ADC working and that includes wiring! Very user friendly and would be a great product for beginners.

I will say it is not as fast as a standard controller and does not contain as much memory but it all the built in packages and code, for a simple project you cannot go wrong.