History

The Arduino project was started in 2005 with the goal of providing students with a low-cost microcontroller. It was created by Massimo Banzi, David Cuartielles, Tom Igoe, Gianluca Martino, and David Mellis at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea in Italy. The project was initially based on a platform called Wiring created by Harnando Barragan in 2003.

Hardware

There is a variety of different types of Arduino boards that have been created. They come in different shapes and with different specifications, and many of them are compatible with "shields". Shields are boards that can add functionality to an Arduino board. Arduino hardware is open source, so anyone can manufacture unofficial boards, but only the official boards have the Arduino trademark.

Software

There is an IDE for programming the Arduino using the C and C++ languages. The IDE also contains functionality for compiling and uploading the programs to the Arduino hardware. Programs written for Arduino boards are called "sketches". Sketches must at least contain the functions setup() and loop(). The Blink sketch is a popular example of a simple sketch that can be run on the Arduino board. Blink simply makes an LED on the board turn on for one second and turn back off for one second repeatedly.

Link to the article

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arduino