The Making of the Arduino

Here at GeekDad, we're huge fans of the Arduino. The Arduino is a fantastic single-board microcontroller, supported by an enthusiastic community of users and developers. Thanks to the efforts of the Arduino development team, tens of thousands of users have been able to cheaply and easily join the world of hardware hacking.

So, who exactly is the Arduino team? Well, a recent article in the IEEE Spectrum provides a behind-the-scenes look at the group of Italians responsible for the creation of the Arduino.

Released in 2005 as a modest tool for Banzi's students at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (IDII), Arduino has spawned an international do-it-yourself revolution in electronics. You can buy an Arduino board for just about US $30 or build your own from scratch: All hardware schematics and source code are available for free under public licenses. As a result, Arduino has become the most influential open-source hardware movement of its time.

The little board is now the go-to gear for artists, hobbyists, students, and anyone with a gadgetry dream. More than 250,000 Arduino boards have been sold around the world — and that doesn't include the reams of clones. "It made it possible for people do things they wouldn’t have done otherwise," says David A. Mellis, who was a student at IDII before pursuing graduate work at the MIT Media Lab and is the lead software developer of Arduino.

There are Arduino-based breathalyzers, LED cubes, home-automation systems, Twitter displays, and even DNA analysis kits. There are Arduino parties and Arduino clubs. Google has recently released an Arduino-based development kit for its Android smartphone. As Dale Dougherty, the editor and publisher of Make magazine, the bible of DIY builders, puts it, Arduino has become "the brains of maker projects."

Check out the whole story over at the IEEE Spectrum...