In addition to having strong hands-on skills and a passionate heart, Makers also possess a crucial skill – the “Arduino Board.” From quirky hardware gadgets to multi-million dollar commercial products like Pebble smartwatches and MakerBot 3D printers, all of them begin with this seemingly simple Arduino board.

“Fifty years ago, people who wrote software had to wear a white coat and know everything about semiconductors. Now? Even my mother can program,” says Massimo Banzi, one of Arduino’s founders. He continues, “We made it possible for many people to create their own products.” Prior to Arduino, you needed to understand circuit board assembly and have a solid foundation in electronic engineering. Although Arduino still requires programming knowledge, it has reduced the difficulty enough to be accessible to amateur software development enthusiasts.

In the tenth year since its creation, the $30 Arduino microcontroller board has become the hallmark of the Maker movement and open-source hardware. Over 1 million units have been sold globally, not counting hundreds of clones and modified versions. The Arduino company itself is unique—rarely using traditional marketing methods and allowing others to clone and modify their products. As a result, the Arduino name has been adopted in different regions of the world, sometimes with different branding for local markets.

How Did Arduino Gain Popularity?

“We didn’t focus on marketing; we focused on building a community.” This is a remark that Massimo Banzi frequently highlights when reflecting on Arduino’s early success.

In 2003, Massimo began teaching at the Ivrea Interactive Design Institute in Italy. His students were engaged in computer-controlled art projects, but Massimo soon noticed that their enthusiasm was low, and most of them were only achieving simple interaction effects.

“They were using the BASIC Stamp controller, which cost around $100. It was too expensive for students, and it required a certain level of professionalism, so they tried to use it as little as possible,” Massimo recalls. This was the driving force behind the creation of the Arduino board – a solution that allowed students to create projects at a much lower cost.

In 2004, Massimo teamed up with three others: David Cuartielles, a Spanish semiconductor engineer who was on an academic visit at Ivrea; David Mellis, one of Massimo’s students; and Nicholas Zambetti. The Arduino project was named after a local bar where the team frequently gathered.

“The students at these two schools weren’t interested in becoming technical experts; they just wanted to be designers and artists. They understood that microcontrollers were useful, but they didn’t want to go through an entire engineering course. So we developed Arduino,” recalls Tom Igoe, one of the co-founders.

Thanks to its low price and lack of prerequisite programming knowledge, Arduino quickly became popular among students. In 2005, Massimo began to see Arduino as a product with worldwide potential, so he brought in Tom Igoe, a professor at the New York University Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), and Gianluca Martino, an expert in production. Together, they scaled up the project.

“In the early days, we didn’t have the budget for marketing; we just organized small offline events,” Massimo recalls. In 2005, after mass production began, Massimo sent an email to friends and acquaintances in London, asking if they would be interested in spending $100 to participate in a project no one fully understood. “To my surprise, 25 people showed up,” Massimo says with a smile.

“The board itself wasn’t impressive, but the interesting projects people could create with it were what mattered. In those early days, we let designers, artists, and friends use the board, create their projects, and then post them online,” Massimo continues.

In 2006, Tom Igoe adopted the same strategy, bringing the Arduino board to New York University and encouraging students to post their work online. That same year, Tom reached out to Dale Dougherty, the founder of *Make* magazine. Shortly thereafter, *Make* published its first article on Arduino, and it quickly became the new standard in the Maker community.

“People used to say, ‘I have to learn how to program a microcontroller,’ but now we say, ‘I want to learn microcontroller programming so I can build a robot.’” Igoe believes that by lowering the learning barrier, Arduino changed how people approach hardware development.

Lowering the Barriers to Hardware Development

The Botanicalls project, which began in 2007, is a perfect example of Arduino’s impact. Robo Flaude, a researcher at the Computer Laboratory at New York University, and his small team of five wanted to create a project that would draw attention to plants and nature. They came up with the idea of making plants “talk” using technology.

However, they have daily development tasks, and it was uncertain how much time they could dedicate to Botanicalls.

“We have many ideas, but not all of them can be developed in depth, especially when we don’t know if people will be interested. However, thanks to Arduino, the initial version of Botanicalls only took us two or three days. After we launched the idea, we saw a great deal of interest, so we decided to turn it into a formal product,” Rob told Curious Daily. To this day, you can still purchase the Botanicalls kit on SparkFun, a popular hardware platform.

Due to its compelling product concept, Botanicalls has been featured twice in The New York Times. Robb, after the project gained popularity, joined DigiInternational, a company that also focuses on open-source hardware. He mentioned to Curious Daily that although they have their own expertise, the most significant advantage of Arduino was the ability to quickly test market reactions. “For us, it’s invaluable to quickly gauge how people respond to a product, which means we can follow up. Arduino gave us that opportunity.”

For individuals without a programming background, Arduino makes it possible to enter the field of hardware development with minimal effort.

“Arduino changed my life,” said another creator, Judy Castro. “Before that, I was a traditional sculptor.”

Thanks to Arduino, Judy has now become a well-known entrepreneur in education. Her project, called Coffeebots, uses a discarded coffee can and an Arduino microcontroller to create a small robot that moves autonomously. She aims to use this project for children’s robotics education, empowering them to engage with technology at a very low cost. “I did this without any programming knowledge,” Judy explained, confident that children will also succeed in creating similar projects.

Thanks to Arduino, Judy has been very busy over the past three years. Her coffee robot project was selected as the best project by the American magazine Make. Judy traveled from San Francisco to Shenzhen with her coffee robot to participate in the Maker Faire. She’s been actively involved in schools and educational institutions, delivering speeches and workshops. For her next project, she plans to use Arduino to power a crocodile robot with a motor.

“Fifty years ago, software developers had to wear a white coat and understand everything about semiconductors. Today, even my mother can program,” Massimo said. “We’ve empowered countless people to create their own products.”

Open-Source and Replicable: How Arduino Created an Industry

“Fifty years ago, software developers needed to wear white coats and understand semiconductors in detail. Today, even my mother can program,” Massimo said. “We’ve empowered many people to create their own products.”

At the start of the Arduino project, Massimo and his team made a pivotal decision: they chose to release the Arduino board and hardware designs online under a Creative Commons license, which is supported by a non-profit organization. This meant that Arduino’s boards transitioned from being a proprietary product to an open-source, cloneable, and redesignable hardware project. Those who modify Arduino boards don’t have to pay licensing fees or even consult with the Arduino team.

The “open-source” model is one of the main reasons Arduino spread so rapidly. According to data from the Arduino team, over 1 million Arduino boards have been sold, and 317 modified versions of the boards have been created, spanning applications from robotics to home automation. Arduino-related boards and the growing open-source hardware ecosystem have also facilitated the transition of Arduino prototypes into mass production, further boosting the open-source hardware movement.

SparkFun, a leading chip retailer and component supplier, has greatly benefited from Arduino’s rise. SparkFun offers DIY assembly kits for enthusiasts, frequently paired with review materials and open-source instructions.

As Arduino gained popularity, SparkFun also introduced the IOIO microcontroller, specifically designed for Android devices, allowing developers to control projects through Android phones and tablets. By 2014, SparkFun had expanded its board catalog to over 3,000 products, with annual revenue reaching $32 million—three times the amount from just five years prior.

Since Wellcircuits has become an official Arduino.cc distributor, you can find certified Arduino products in our store. Click here to browse our selection.

If you have any questions about PCBs or PCBA, feel free to contact us at info@wellcircuits.com.