I highly recommend getting a small, cheap FPGA development board with something supported by Yosys, like a Latice ICE40UP5k, Efinix T8F81C2, or GOWIN GW1NR-9.

Yosys is a super lightweight open-source FPGA toolchain that really easy to get up and running. The FPGA models I mentioned have ~5k to ~10k LUTs, can all support simple RISC-V processors, and have built-in memory and DSPs.