The monome

A really cool project to dive into, even for a persistent beginner, is the monome. You can start with a rubber button kit from sparkfun, or find your own special way. Don't fee like building it, you can buy it from monome.org.

A monome is a musical instrument, or a sequencer, or both -all rolled into one. You can even fiddle with the firmware, and make it do whatever. A launchpad controller for your intercontinental missiles perhaps, or maybe a tetris game.