I will suggest you pick up a cheap bread board or two and a hand full of LEDs, resistors, caps etc. The demo boards are nice I guess, but you can not do a whole lot with them other than what they were designed to do.

As far as the coil winding project goes. A switch on a cam or some other part will work. Every revolution the switch is "bumped" from low to high. Every time the switch is bumped a variable is incremented.

If it is not running real fast interrupts will not be needed.
Code:
LOOP:
IF SWITCH = 1 THEN
WRAP = WRAP + 1
GOTO LOOP
That is the basics. Add a serial or LCD to display the value. Add
IF WRAP = X THEN GOTO STOP ???

Let us know...