Arduino is one of the most successful Open Hardware projects available to hobbiests today! Arduino is a micro controler that provides digital and analog inputs, as well as an RS232 interface, a USB interface that also powers the device, as well as several other useful interface techniques. The 29th of March 2014 has been declaired Arduino Day, to celbrate Arduino’s first 10 years.

The main advantages of the Arduino is that it is small, inexpensive, and versitile. Kits and assembled boards are available for freetronics and SparkFun as well as Maker Shed among others. Since the Arduino, there have been several small board, embeded systems, ariving on the market. The Raspberry Pi is a full blown computer on a credit card sized board running an Arm processor and priced under $50. The next offering was the BeagleBoard, another open hardware project. While a bit more expensive at around $70, this board is faster than the Raspberry Pi, and has some interesting interface options. Just recently Intel introduced Galileo, which is sort of a combination of the BeagleBoard and the Arduino, that runs a trimmed down version of Linux which emulates the Arduino hardware and can accept standard Arduino scripts

While all of these boards are good development boards and each comes with digital and analog inputs, they really do not satisfy the implimentation requirements the Arduino provides. With new application sofware available for tablets, you can program the Arduino from your desktop machine, your laptop, or even your tablet. This interface provides high level script writing capabilities intended to be accessible to non-programmers and there are many project examples availble on the web.

One of my favorite sites for Arduino project information is TronixStuff. They review new Arduino releases, and new periferal devices that interface with the Arduino, as well as completely unrelated electronic related projects. You can even subscribe to the newsletter and receive these reviews via email.

There have been several good books written on the Arduino. If you have never used the Arduino before, then Make: Getting Starte with Arduino written by one of the co-founders of the Arduino, is a good place to start. This book along with many others are available in electronic formats. Kindle formatted versions are available for most of these editions. After you have exhaused the introduction book, you probably want to look at a projects book. Tronicstuff has produced Arduino Workshop that details 65 Arduino projects. If you search you ebook supplier you will find sever other good project books. These books all develope projects using the Arduino IDE, which is both a programming tool and provides monitoring through the serial interface. Make has produces a new book that digs into the internals of the chip and explains how to use the C programming language to program the chip with full details on how to re-burn the eporm, along with many other details on the internals of the chip. Make: AVR Programming provides this information with the goal of merging your hardware side with your sofware skills. While many of the topics dig deep into both hardware and software specifics of this device, the topics are very well written and will provide lots of useful information on the chip internals.

A quick look at any of the projects books makes it pretty clear that what can be done with the Arduino is limited by your creativity and very little else. With the advent of 3D Printing, the possibilities expand greatly. So, if you have the germ of an idea for something electronic, take a look at the Arduino. You will be surprised at what this little device can accomplish.