Wonderfl Physical Computing

wonderfl is (was) a web-based flash development environment. The idea is: you type code into the web page, and compile it in the same page. A few seconds later, and your code is a fully functional demo sitting alongside what you've just written.

What's really great though is the ability for you to browse other user's source code, test it, and add to it. Add to that, the Funnel Server. Funnel is a set of libraries for Actionscript 3 (and Ruby and Processing), that provide a simple interface between these languages, and your hardware.

As an introduction to physical computing, without the hassle of spending time understanding the ins and outs, it is perfect. There are a good mix of simple and complex projects, look through them here.

An example:

Interactive Architecture dot Org