(Copying from elsewhere:) I highly recommend the "Particle Adventure" for lots of info about basic particles physics that's accessible to the layman

http://www.particleadventure.org/

In particular, starting at this page should give you an idea of how many components there are and what sorts of information come out of them:

http://www.particleadventure.org/component_detector.html

Although the cartoons seem a bit silly, this is what my professor gave me as an undergrad to get oriented, and it was really helpful.