How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love To Solder
Welcome, proud owner of a Volver. It will probably take around 2 hours to solder your blinky.
YOU WILL NEED:
A soldering iron. Any iron will work, though a smaller tip will work better. If you have a big battleship style soldering iron, you may want to hit the local Radio Shack and find a smaller tip.
A wet sponge to clean your soldering iron with.
Some solder. Just about any solder, including rosin-core or silver-bearing, will work just fine. Do not use acid-core solder.
A nippy cutter to trim leads with. A pair of dykes will work but not as well.
RECOMMENDED:
Solder braid in case you make an error.
A magnifying glass to check your work with.
A clean, well lit working space away from cats.
Hot glue or double-sided foam tape.
OPTIONAL:
Flux Remover
A nasty old toothbrush
Your blinky kit comes the the following parts:
The process of assembling your blinky kit consists of three things that you will do over and over again. They are:
STUFFING parts into holes in the circuit board
SOLDERING those parts into the circuit board
CLIPPING the leads that stick out
HOW TO STUFF
Place your part through the holes in the board. Make sure it is pressed flat against the circuit board. You may need to bend the leads out so it does not fall out when you turn the board over. You can also use a piece of cardboard or anything else flat and stiff to hold parts in place when you turn the board over.
HOW TO SOLDER
Soldering isn't hard to get the hang of. The key thing to remember is to heat the joint, not the solder.
First, make sure your iron is tinned. This is done by melting a bit of solder onto the tip of the iron and wiping it on the sponge. It should be shiny and silver. If you cannot get the tip of your soldering iron to become shiny and silver, you may need a new tip.
Hold your iron on the pad (the shiny part of the circuit board) where the lead comes through. Hold it there for a few seconds to heat the joint up. Then, when it's good and hot, touch the solder lightly to the joint. You don't need to use a lot of solder to make a good connection. Your solder joint should look like a tapered volcano. If it looks like a volcano with straight edges, that's OK, but you can use less solder. If it looks like a ball, you are using too much solder and you may not be getting the joint hot enough.
This is what the process looks like. Notice that the solder is not touching the tip of the iron. It is melting in the joint. Also note that this is a picture of last year's blinky, but it does a good job of making the point.
Here is a picture of some well-soldered pins. From last year's blinky.
HOW TO CLIP:
Use your nippy cutter to clip the leads off the board after you've soldered them. Clip them just above the solder joint - do not force your cutter to be absolutely flush with the board and clip the entire solder joint off.
OK, on to assembling your blinky. You will want the contents of your kit sorted out in front of you.
AN IMPORTANT NOTE ON ASSEMBLING:
This is the bottom of the circuit board!
STEP 1: THE ICs 
Stuff the four ICs into the back side of the board.
You may find that the pins of the ICs are a little too wide to fit in the holes. To fix this, place the chip on its side on a flat hard surface. Place your thumbs over the pins on the other side. Squeeze evenly and gently until you feel the pins bend inward just a little.
Do not squeeze too hard and over-bend the pins. If you do, you can carefully bend them back with a pliers.
You will see the chip on the left has carefully bent leads.
As for where the ICs should be stuffed into the board: Two of ICs are the same, one is smaller, and one is larger than the other two, with the darkest text on it. The largest IC is the Atmel Mega168 microcontroller. It is the brains behind the operation. It goes in the space labeled IC1. You will notice that there is a notch in the chip. Also, you may notice a suspicious-looking notch in the outline of the chip on the back of the board. Yes, you should line up the notch in the chip with the notch on the board. If you do not, the blinky WILL NOT WORK.
The two medium-sized ICs go in the spaces labeled IC2 and IC3. They too must have their notches lined up. They are LED drivers, and the Atmel tells them what to do.
The smallest IC goes into the space labeled IC4. It too is an LED driver.
When you have stuffed the ICs, turn the board over and solder them in. You do not need to clip the leads of the ICs as they are already short.
STEP 2: RESISTORS, CAPACITORS, CRYSTAL, and BUTTONS
You will see two different types of resistors and two different types of small capacitors in front of you. There are two different values of each of these. The values are labeled on the tape holding them together. Stuff them into the board in the following places:
.1 uf capacitor: C1, C2, C3, C4
22pf capacitor: C5, C6
2K resistors: R1, R2, R3
10K resistor: R4
Crystal: Q1
Buttons: S2 and S1
Do not worry about the orientation of any of these parts.
If you get the capacitors or resistors mixed up, fear not. The .1uf capacitors have '104' printed on them in tiny letters, and the 22pf capacitors have '22J'. The 10K resistors have brown, black, orange, and gold bands. The 2K resistors have red, black, red, and gold bands.
You may need to bend the legs of these parts to keep them from sliding out when you flip the board.
While you're at it, put the crystal (metal and shiny) into Q1. The buttons will snap into S1 and S2.
Then turn the board over, solder the parts in, and clip the leads that are sticking out. You do not have to clip the leads of the buttons.
As you solder these connections, you will notice that some of the pads need more heat than others. These pads are part of the ground plane, which makes them take longer to solder. Be patient and apply heat until the solder melts into the joint.
STEP 3: THE SWITCH, THE POLARIZED CAPACITORS, AND THE VOLTAGE REGULATOR
Next up is the switch. It likes to fall out, so you may want to grab a piece of cardboard or a book and hold it against the switch and the board as you turn it over. It goes in the only place it will fit, though it is not labeled.
Next up, you will stuff the polarized capacitors. They go in C7 and C8, and they are the same, so it doesn't matter which goes into which. It is important that you get their orientation correct! The long lead is closer to the outline for the battery holder.. This puts the grey stripe facing out towards the edge of the board. There is a mark around one of the pads on the board -- the shorter of the two leads should be enclosed by that mark.
Also stuff the voltage regulator at this time. It goes into U2, the only place it will fit. Align the silver backing of the part with the line on the circuit board. Be careful while soldering it as the pads are closer together than on most of the other components.
AT THIS POINT CHECK OVER YOUR WORK TO MAKE SURE YOU HAVE NO BRIDGED CONNECTIONS OR UNSOLDERED PARTS. ESPECIALLY CHECK THE SWITCHES, VOLTAGE REGULATOR, CRYSTAL, AND 22UF CAPACITORS. IF ANYTHING LOOKS SUSPICIOUS, TOUCH YOUR SOLDERING IRON INTO THE JOINT AND REHEAT THE CONNECTION UNTIL YOU SEE IT MELT. THIS IS KNOWN AS 'REFLOWING'.
Also, if you want the front of your board to look extra-good, you will want to use flux remover on all the pads you have soldered.
STEP 4: THE SPACER AND THE LEDS 
The next thing to do is place the acrylic spacer on top of the circuit board, in such a manner that it sits flat on the board and the tiny holes match up with the LEDs. If you are looking at the circuit board with the switch at the bottom right, the two large holes on the spacer should be on the right side.
You're getting close! Next up are the most important parts of any blinky. The LEDs should be stuff into the front side of the board, through the tiny holes in the spacer. You may need to force them a little bit, but they will fit through the spacer.
Be careful when flipping the board that the LEDs don't slide out. Try to keep them from getting soldered in at an angle. A slightly intermediate-level fix for a crooked LED is reheating both the pads at once and pushing the LED in with your other hand, while holding the board up.
You can clip the LEDs when they are all soldered in, or you can clip them as you go along to open up room to solder more easily. There are a couple of LEDs that are pretty hard to get to -- rotate your soldering iron around to get a good angle on the one that's in between the voltage regulator and the polarized capacitors.
STEP 4: THE BATTERY HOLDER
Last up is the battery holder. It goes in through the back. Make sure to get a good solder joint on it. There is a lot of copper on the ground connection which sucks the heat away, so be patient.
Stick in a battery, turn it on, and you should be blinking! The battery connection isn't that great of a mechanical connection to hold the battery in, so you probably want to hot glue or tape down the battery holder with thick foam double-sided tape.