I bought an STM32F4 Discovery board from Farnell a few months back, the reason really was to have a play around with the .net micro framework port for it. I played around with it for a few weeks then got bored of it and the board went back on the shelf.
Then just by chance I was reading some posts on the Raspberry Pi forums and heard about Espruino. Its a Javascript interpreter than runs on a few different ARM boards, and the STM32F4 Discovery was one of them. Its a doddle to install on the board and allows you execute code instantly on the device, which is great for novices and saves time on compiling, programming and debugging simple projects.
The STM32F4Discovery is a bargain £10.14 + VAT From Element 14. Im lucky enough to live a mile or so away from them. For the price you get a lot of bang for the buck. 1mb flash, 192Kb RAM, USB OTG, accelerometer, 4 user LEDS..
http://uk.farnell.com/stmicroelectronics/stm32f4discovery/stm32f407-usb-otg-discovery-kit/dp/2009276
http://www.st.com/internet/evalboard/product/252419.jsp
It also runs on the cheap HY boards which come with a touchscreen and SDcard slot, and are about £25 shipped from Hong Kong.
The support is fantastic too. I have emailed the author about a few issues, all of which I might add were user, and he got back to me quite quickly and was very helpful and open to suggestions for future versions.
The free version doesnt allow saving to flash, but the registered version costs just £2.95 which does enable this function.
For more info have a look at http://www.espruino.com and spread the word. Its a very good alternative to using Arduino and the hardware is very very cheap.
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