Why Choose ARDUINO?

There are many other microcontrollers and microcontroller platforms available in market for physical computing. Such as Parallax Basic Stamp, Netmedia's BX-24, Phidgets, MIT's Handyboard, BeagleBoard, and many others offer similar functionality. All of these tools take the messy details of microcontroller programming and wrap it up in an easy-to-use package. Arduino also simplifies the process of working with microcontrollers, but it offers some advantage for teachers, students, artists, tinkerers, and interested amateurs over other systems:

Cross-platform - The Arduino drivers and software runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux operating systems and they are completely open source. Most microcontroller systems are limited to Windows.

Inexpensive - Arduino boards are relatively inexpensive compared to other microcontroller platforms. The least expensive version of the Arduino module can be assembled by hand, and even the pre-assembled Arduino modules cost less than $50 that comes with free authoring software.

Simple board - Many microcontroller boards are historically enormously complex with a lot of added-on parts like LCDs, buttons, LEDs, 7-segments, etc. showing everything it can do. Arduino has the bare minimum. Want more? Get a shield. There are hundreds of Arduino shields, from LCD to Wi-Fi, but it’s up to the user to add that. Shields add extra functionality easily.

Simple programming environment - The Arduino programming environment is easy-to-use for beginners, yet flexible enough for advanced users to take advantage of as well. There are libraries to do simple things, like twiddle pins or debounce buttons and tons of object-wrapped libraries to do complex things, like writing to SD cards, LCD screens, parsing GPS. For teachers, it's conveniently based on the Processing programming environment, so students learning to program in that environment will be familiar with the look and feel of Arduino. Arduino is a simple system designed for creative people with little or “no prior knowledge of electronics. Above all, it has a very welcoming attitude towards beginners and tries not to scare them too much.”

Open source and extensible hardware - The Arduino is based on Atmel's ATMEGA8 and ATMEGA168 microcontrollers. The plans for the modules are published under a Creative Commons license, so experienced circuit designers can make their own version of the module, extending it and improving it. Even relatively inexperienced users can build the breadboard version of the module in order to understand how it works and save money.

Open source and extensible software - The Arduino software is published as open source tools, available for extension by experienced programmers. The language can be expanded through C++ libraries, and people wanting to understand the technical details can make the leap from Arduino to the AVR C programming language on which it's based. Similarly, you can add AVR-C code directly into your Arduino programs if you want to.

Sensor Data - The Arduino really took off because it has analog-to-digital input, in other words, you can take in sensor data like light, temperature, sound, or whatever using the low-cost sensors already on the market and get that into the Arduino easily. It also has ready-to-go SPI and I2C for digital sensors. This covers 99% of sensors on the market. You can’t easily do this with other platforms.