Progressive learning and arduino
It's easy and affordable to build custom electronics. It used to be hard as you had to do every circuit yourself. Growing open source ideologies have changed that.
Arduino, raspberry pi and hobbyist community around them spawn AVR/ATmega/broadcom -compatible modules. Many of those modules are cheap and their schematics are openly available. Once something becomes good for mass-manufacturing you see their circuits thrown together into a single card and sold like hotcakes.
The 3D-printer we bought is controlled by an arduino. It's the most accessible and most maintainable equipment I've seen. If ordinary printers were like this they'd be the most loved equipment in the office. There's a problem in hiding manufacturing method into a little box and commercializing it. The problem is you tame the human who buys that thing and make him yours.
I got a custom keyboard as a christmas gift. It's running off an arduino mini. I imagine building a functioning lightsaber would feel like building your own keyboard like this. It very much felt like I joined a community of some kind. Oh the keyboard sort of sucks a little and I should sort of improve it.
Lots of people look and seem like they'd be okay being enslaved. I'd suppose they would be fine with tools that own them. But I don't know. People overall don't seem to know what they like themselves.
I'm looking into a future where a high tech robot, car or computer isn't different from a hacksaw, hammer or knife. You can study it, you can repair it yourself, you can upgrade or repurpose it. It's only enclosed for your own safety, rather than for protecting and providing R&D incentive for some disfigured business in Silicon Valley.
Arduino allows gradual or progressive learning path into electronics. Only thing you need to know the school basics about electronics so you won't kill yourself. Also you got to understand the basic dangers produced by physics and science behind what you build. It's all easy to obtain information though. As long as you do your homework before obtaining new things, you'll be fine.
Important thing in gradual learning is that you prepare to learn it all, but don't learn it until you need it. I propose you prepare to do programming with raspberry pi. Prepare yourself to reading a book on electronics. Don't do it all straight away. You might spend years to study everything you think might matter and bore yourself out. Wait for the demand to trigger the interest.
Once you get stuck, don't give up. If you give up, you can only blame yourself for being the victim of the situation. There are going to be hard things, but they'll be hard for everyone. Once you get through, be sure to claim the score. Running a business even for profit rather than just living isn't evil. Just keep in mind open source is all about keeping the choices open to those who want to pursue them. Don't obstruct the way for others that come after you, and you're doing it right.
As someone who has created programming tools. I see that you've got the best teaching material when it yields meaningful rewards in short bursts. It's something I should keep in mind.