Arduino

Arduino is an open-source microcontroller platform created in Italy in 2005. It is the default starting point for almost every Indian school robotics club. A genuine Arduino Uno costs about ₹2,500; clones sell for ₹350.

Why Arduino changed everything

Before Arduino, embedded programming meant proprietary chips, expensive programmers, and obscure toolchains. Arduino opened up three things:

• A cheap board (Atmel ATmega328 + USB-serial)
• A simple IDE in Java that flashes the board with one click
• A C/C++ dialect with two functions — setup() and loop() — that fits most beginner mental models

What you can build

• Line-following robots
• Obstacle-avoiding robots (with an HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor)
• Smart-irrigation systems with soil-moisture probes
• IoT-connected bins, plant monitors, weather stations

Arduino's analog-write function uses PWM under the hood — the same trick that controls servo motors and dims LEDs. To drive real motors, you pair Arduino with a motor driver like the L298N.

For more compute (computer vision, ROS), graduate to a Raspberry Pi.