Definition

Arduino is a user based community that is indulged in the design, development and sales of open-source software, open source hardware, and microcontroller-based kits that are used in the manufacturing of interactive objects and digital devices that have an ability of sensing and controlling physical devices.

The project is formed on the basis of microcontroller board designs that have been developed by a number of vendors through the deployment of different microcontrollers. An integrated development environment is provided by Arduino project for the development of these microcontrollers. This environment is based on Arduino project’s programming language that supports both C as well as C++.

History of Arduino

Hernando Barragán, who was a Colombian student, formulated Wiring – a development platform as a part of this Master’s thesis project in the year 2004. This project was submitted in Ivrea, Italy at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (IDII). The supervisors for Barragán’s project were Casey Reas, who is well known for the work he did on Processing Programming Language, and Massimo Banzi.

The basic aim that underlay the development of this project was the creation of simplified and low cost tools that facilitated non-engineers in the creation of digital projects. The three major components of the Wiring platform were: a hardware PCB in combination with ATmega128 microcontroller, an integrated development environment (IDE) which was developed on the basis of Processing and library functions that aided in the easy programming of the microcontroller.

Massimo Banzi, and David Cuartielles along with David Mellis (who was a student in IDII at that time), further developed the Wiring Platform. This was done through the addition of support for a cheaper version of ATmega8 microcontroller to the platform in the year 2005. However, these individuals that stopped working on Wiring Platform and used its source code to develop an entirely new platform called Arduino.

The initial team that was indulged in the development of Arduino consisted of David Cuartielles, Massimo Banzi, Gianluca Martino, David Mellis, and Tom Igoe.

The project got its name from a bar, which is situated in Ivrea, as it is the location where some of the founding team members of the project conducted their meetings. The completion of the Wiring Platform was accompanied by the development and creation of low cost and lighter versions of the same platform. These versions were made available on the open source community. The idea of creation and open source access was promoted by David Cuartielles and other associated researchers.

Job profiles that require this skill