You can actually order a basic board of Arduino like Arduino Decimilia or Dueminolova and learn the hardware basics like connecting sensors, working with actuators, serial communication and then you can go for
You could alternatively use an Arduino or another microcontroller. You basically just need a few things: PWM output to drive HV transformer. Pulse pin to generate a pulse. Status pin to monitor the HV status. You have two options for building the PicoEMP: (1) total scratch build, or (2...