This project will keep you amused for hours. It's a simple COMBINATION LOCK with two buttons.
They must be pressed a special number of times and the first LED will illuminate. For the next steps, the timing between the presses is important.
If you get it right, the next LED will come on. If you get it wrong, a LED will go out.
This project is compact and challenging and teaches three different sections of electronics.
The heart of the circuit is a tiny PIC microcontroller (PIC12F629) and it's programmed when fitted to the board.
This involves IN-CIRCUIT PROGRAMMING and if you have not encountered this before, this project will get you started.
You will also encounter surface-mount components and you can learn programming to change some of the features of the project.
In all, this  project offers lots of features on a PC board the size of matchstick.

WHERE DO YOU START?
This project comes as a kit for us$12.00 (plus us$7.00 postage world-wide) from Talking Electronics. The chip is pre-programmed but you are encouraged to modify the program to extend the complexity of the game. 

There are 3 additional articles to help you get into programming PIC chips

 
A kit is available for this project under $12.00. It comes with a pre-programmed microcontroller and all the surface-mount components in a strip. These must not be removed until required as some components are not marked.
If you have not soldered surface-mount components before, we have provided links to website address and movie clips to show exactly how to solder them in place.
That's the brilliance of the web. It's just a clock away to anything you require.
The only thing it cannot give you is skill. But with a fine tipped soldering iron and fine solder, the components can be soldered in place quite easily. We have not supplied extremely small devices and the resistors are clearly marked.
The only components needing care are the transistors and LEDs. But if you have a temperature-controlled soldering iron, you can take up to 2 seconds to make a joint.

PRELIMINARY INFORMATION

A lot of basic information has been provided on the web, by the author, for those starting the world of microcontrollers.
The scope of the information is considerable and the headlines of each are as follows: