Sometimes I place orders only to realize I’ve forgotten something. Typically I visit sparkfun when I’ve got a new project idea or want to explore something - perhaps high power LEDs or XBee whatnots… Anyway, the related products are awfully helpful, but some sort of checklist or questionaire would be great.
Something to present a collection of items that are needed to do a specific thing - then you can opt out from there. For example if I wanted to start playing around w/ an XBee setup it’d be nice to have a baseline - like “you’ll need 2 modules, and perhaps this USB carrier and an arduino shield and some antennas.”
Or something like asking what type of project I’m starting… so I say Xbee and then it’s a question of am I going straight to a computer USB or to an arduino - do you need an arduino? How much distance do you want to achieve, you may not need an antenna for that…
now it sounds like I’m rambling, but I think you can boil down a lot of starter projects and branches of exploration to a few things. RGB Leds, high power LEDs, Wireless projects, Information Display of some kind - clearly others I’m missing. But if you could have a baseline package of “what you need” it would be helpful. I’ve placed orders, gotten them and then realized I was missing something… meh.