I love Ardunio. I love the things that people make with them and I love to make my own. Last August I published an Instructable on how to make your own postage stamp sized Arduino compatible.
This Instructable will show you how to to make a rugged, versatile Ardunio compatible with basic components on board. It will be more suitable for deployment in the real world than a bread board attached to a development board. This video is from the Kickstarter, but you can totally make your own.
This open source hardware project is licensed Creative Commons CC-BY. Part of my philosophy of open source hardware means I don’t consider a design released without detailed build instructions. Instructables is my favorite place to release those Instructions.
For more detail: DIY custom rugged Arduino