So the tricky thing in your question is that there’s loads of different components. There’s the circuit-design part; the manufacturing-boards part; and then if you want to make something digital, there’s writing code, writing code that works on MCU of choice, getting MCU into the world.
But: these are all components with small starting points. A breadboard and a bag of parts is not a bad way to begin; any Arduino starter kit will get you off the grounds in terms of thinking with voltages, and passive components, and beginning to write simple logic. The difference between ‘working on a breadboard’ and ‘now how do I make this work in Euro’ is not particularly high, the hard bit is getting the circuit right to begin with (and not screwing up the 'adding modular belt/braces).
I’ve prototyped stuff in software like Processing before turning it into firmware - ironing out the kinks in my logic. So you don’t necessarily need to dive into the whole dependency chain to start sketching the problem. Finding something you can think in is important.
The thing I definitely know, though, is having a goal makes this easier. Much easier to learn something if you know what you want to achieve. And foot-pedal interaction modules are actually pretty straightforward (I know, because I’m working on one). It’s basically just a button, and making a button do things is one of the first things you can learn. Massimo Banzi’s Getting Started with Arduino is really good on starting to think with microcontrollers and simple passive components like this.
