​Arduino is a wildly popular hobby computing platform. Arduino refers to three things:

• A friendly software development environment that runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux (get it ​here)
• A suite of single board computers (see ​here) based on AVR and ARM processors
• A standard stackable ​interface that lets you plug "shields" into the single-board computers to extend their functionality with things like ​motor control, ​Ethernet, ​WiFi, etc.

Single board computers like Arduino are perfect for robotics because they are small, rugged, and can easily run on battery power. We use Arduino computers on Team 2537 because they are very inexpensive (often available for less than $4) and are perfect for robotics. Arduino computers can easily be connected to sensors that provide information about the real world and actuators such as motors and solenoids. Other popular single-board computers for robotics include the ​Rasberry Pi and ​mBed.

Team 2537 has a set of lessons that introduce you to Arduino through hands-on projects culminating in mini-robots that you design.

• Lesson 1 - Getting to Blinky?
• Lesson 2 - Breadboards and Multimeters?
• Lesson 3 - Touch and Feel?
• Lesson 4 - Making Music?
• Lesson 5 - Ultrasonic?
• Lesson 6 - Move It!?
• Lesson 7 - Control It?
• Lesson 8 - Smorgasbord?