To meet the following challenges, you only need a "basic" NoviceGuard and NovGrdCore.
You can do the challenges without either... but they are written up in a way that will be most useful if you do have the PCB and the library.
New users should be given NoviceGuards with "the pull up resistors" on inPUR, inPLR" already in place. (If you are a novice, you should be worrying about this. If you are both the novice and the mentor, this matter is discussed in the main NoviceGuard pages, and it only becomes important if you want to use the input buttons at the upper and lower right.)
There's a reason people start their microprocessor journey with winking an LED.
Once you have mastered Blinky, build on that.
WANT MORE?... There are many, many challenges which could be done with NoviceGuards set up as it was for the above. But I need to hear that people are interested before I'm going to put much more energy into this project.