Arduino is a set of tools that can be used to sense and control the physical world. It consists of the MCU, open source hardware platform, and a developing environment of writing programs for Arduino boards.Arduino can be used to develop interactive products, such as it can read lots of switches and sensor signals; control all kinds of lights, motors and other physical devices. The Arduino project can be single or used to communicate with programs running on your computer (e.g. Flash, Processing, Max MSP). You can choose the manual assemble or buy the complete one. The open source’s IDE from Arduino can be downloaded for free.

You can tell your board what to do by sending a set of instructions to the microcontroller on the board. It is like the brain of a project. Because it is so flexible and open source, Arduino is the best solution if you are interested in creating interactive objects or environments no matter you are artists, designers or hobbyists.

Arduino Cheap--Comparing with other platforms, Arduino is much cheaper. The cheapest Arduino can be made by ourselves. Even if it is assembled, it will not cost more than $35 .

The cross-platform -- Arduino IDE can run on the operating systems of Windows, Macintosh OSX, and Linux. Most of other MCU compilers only run on Windows.

The simple programming environment - beginners can easily learn to use the Arduino programming environment, and it can provide advanced users with enough advanced applications. For teachers, it is very convenient to use Processing programming environment, so if the students have learned the Processing programming environment, they would feel easy in study. Because they are familiar with it.

Software open source and extension - Arduino software is open-source, which can be extended by the experienced programmers. Arduino programming language can be extended by C + +. If someone want to know about the technical details, they can skip the Arduino language directly using AVR C programming language (because Arduino language is actually based on AVR C).Similarly, if you have needs, you also can directly add  ARC-V code to your Arduino program.

Hardware open source and extension - Arduino board is based on the Atmel's ATMEGA8 and the ATMEGA168/328 MCU. Arduino is based on the Creative Commons license agreement, so the experienced circuit designers can design、extend、improve their own modules on the basis of requirements. Even for some users with little experience, it is possible to make a test board to understand how Arduino works, save money and save time.