George;
You’re in the wrong place to learn about Arduino.
The best place for projects and supplies with respect to Arduino is Adafruit in New York City.
Check out their website.
I have 5 or 6 Arduinos and I can tell you the Uno has plenty of power for quite a few projects you can pursue (I’d say at least 60 projects, but probably more).
One of the things to keep in mind is these days, the use of 3.3v logic as opposed to 5v is very prevalent, so if you don’t want to get involved in level shifting, you need to consider Arduino “knock offs”, as you call them, since some have a switch so you can choose the logic levels you want.
The one I use is called “Infiduino UNO R3” – Google it. P.S. I don’t think Adafruit sells the Infiduino. Also; be sure to read this: https://forum.arduino.cc/index.php?topic=414228.0
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