I don't have any money in it right now, it's all on loan from a professor. It would be a few hundred dollars though, if I had to guess.

If you're wanting to get started with microcontrollers, try the radioshack kit "what's a microcontroller?" It's got alot of coding examples and exercises, plus it teaches you quite a bit about simple electronic circuits for less than $100. Check out parallax.com for the kit (they sell it too) as well as stepper motor equipment and other cool add on modules.

A book on BASIC programming would be useful too, as both cubloc and parallax chips use modified versions of BASIC. If you understand if-then statements, for-next loops and do-loops, you probably know enough to get started with your own programs.

Let us know how it goes, and if you have any questions about it I'll be glad to help.

Drew