Got one of these to play with - http://store.hackaday.com/products/tiny-ble (same as) http://www.seeedstudio.com/wiki/Tiny_BLE
which sports this guy - https://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/Products/Bluetooth-Smart-Bluetooth-low-energy/nRF51822
Combined bluetooth and MCU, looks easy enough to use to be good for getting my feet wet

Ordered some SMD LEDs, transistors, some 74HC4514 4:16 demuxes, and some of these CD4724 latches to play with.

Unfortunately, the CD4724 only seems to be available in DIP, no-one stocks surface mount, Fairchild website actually has it listed as obsolete
Anyone know good replacements, or good 4:16 demuxes? The selection seems pretty limited

 

Got one of these to play with - http://store.hackaday.com/products/tiny-ble (same as) http://www.seeedstudio.com/wiki/Tiny_BLE
which sports this guy - https://www.nordicsemi.com/eng/Products/Bluetooth-Smart-Bluetooth-low-energy/nRF51822
Combined bluetooth and MCU, looks easy enough to use to be good for getting my feet wet

Ordered some SMD LEDs, transistors, some 74HC4514 4:16 demuxes, and some of these CD4724 latches to play with.

Unfortunately, the CD4724 only seems to be available in DIP, no-one stocks surface mount, Fairchild website actually has it listed as obsolete
Anyone know good replacements, or good 4:16 demuxes? The selection seems pretty limited

CD4099 is an 8-bit addressable latch also. I don't know if it is any more available than the 4724.
(edited to add ...)
DigiKey has the 4099 in SMD, about $0.46 each in qty of 1.