Comment by snazz

I’m no expert whatsoever, but I’d recommend getting an Arduino (the cheap knockoffs aren’t horrible, but if you get one, be sure to donate a couple of dollars to the legit Arduino people), a couple of big breadboards, a jumper wiring kit (preferably with all of the different inch fractions so your wiring stays neat), and some basic components (resistors, capacitors, LEDs, buttons, simple ICs, etc).

Once you have all that, get the Arduino do turn on an LED when you press a button on the breadboard. Incorporate some kind of sensor, if you want. After that experience, you should be ready to tackle a bigger project. Now that you have a test bed, you can incrementally build circuits from books and the Internet and actually understand what’s going on.