Today, I had my first hands on experience with an FPGA, specifically an Altera MAX 7128S on a UP2 board. While the wiring was interesting (It took my lab partner and I a few minutes to realize that the ports directly around the chip correspond directly to the pins on the chip, unlike the expander section), once the device was wired, the flashing was flawless and the execution was beautiful.
I can really see lots of uses for FPGAs, primary as prototyping for circuits, or even long term implementation where applicable (they can be expensive). I do have some interesting project ideas from this, the first being a custom built FPGA board, as well as a couple others I have in mind.
Be on the lookout for projects to follow, as I will be adding them here!