The Digg button is a very simple beginner electronics that teaches how to solder and program microcontroller. Once made, this basic electronic project mimics the popular Digg.com website: each time you push the button, the button flashes “Dug” and increments the counter up to 999 “diggs”. The project is completely open source, and documented here including parts list, schematics and code. For those who don’t want to try to chase down the electronic components, we have a full kit ready to go in the Adafruit webshop.

Digg.com is a site that allows people all over the globe to discuss and vote on (”digg”) stories. The most popular and talked about stories rise to the top of the page where millions of viewers will see them. Likewise, this button is a simple project that we hope the collective power of Digg will use as a basis for new hacks, mods and projects.

We already have a couple simple projects to get people started: how to power it from USB or batteries, how to make it scroll a simple message, etc. We’ll be updating the mods as more people get their hands on the kits.

For every sale of the Digg button kit we’re giving $1 to the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation). The kit is currently in its first release; new colors and other projects will be available. We even have a plan for making it interface directly to digg.com! (Stay tuned…)

The Digg kit was created when Phillip Torrone (Makezine.com), Kevin Rose (Digg.com) and myself (Ladyada) met up for a drink. We thought it might be interesting to inspire the next generation of technologists and hobbyists who frequent Digg with a fun and easy project that not only teaches but is a lot of fun. [from Limor Fried aka Ladyada, via Architectradure]