Arduino

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platforms based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. Arduino prototyping platforms are intended for artists, designers, beginners, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments. Arduino projects can sense the environment by receiving input from a variety of sensors and can affect their surroundings by controlling lights, motors, and other actuators. Arduino projects can be stand-alone or they can communicate with software running on a computer.

Arduino designs, manufactures, and supports electronic devices and software, allowing people around the world to easily access advanced technologies that interact with the physical world. Arduino’s products are straightforward, simple, and powerful, ready to satisfy users’ needs from students to makers and all the way to professional developers.

Arduino empowers creative minds to master technology and intuitively solve everyday problems. Arduino’s platform simplifies the use of otherwise complex tools. For example, programming a securely connected IoT device is just a few clicks away with the use of the Arduino Cloud.

In a nutshell, an Arduino is an open hardware development board that can be used by tinkerers, hobbyists, and makers to design and build devices that interact with the real world. While Arduino refers to a specific type of board design, it can also be used to refer to a company which manufactures a specific implementation of these boards, and is typically also used to describe the community around compatible boards made by other people or companies which function in a similar way.

Most Arduino enthusiasts, especially when they are starting out, will choose to use the official integrated development environment (IDE) for the Arduino. The Arduino IDE is open source software which is written in Java and will work on a variety of platforms: Windows, Mac, and Linux. The IDE enables you to write code in a special environment with syntax highlighting and other features which will make coding easier, and then easily load your code onto the device with a simple click of a button.