I have been having a mess around with Arduino. I built a simple circuit using and LED and a push button to simulate what I want to achieve in the end; a circuit that outputs something when I press a button essentially! I then wrote a simple push button program in Arduino and loaded it onto the board et voilà! Worked first time. Although this is seriously basic stuff in Arduino I wanted to get something working to boost my confidence in using it. The world is now my oyster!