But what on Earth is Arduino, anyway? What makes it so versatile? And what can you do with it?

Limor Fried built her business on DIY tools and technologies. Limor, better known to the Internet as Ladyada, is a cofounder of Adafruit Industries, a site that sells kits, tools, and accessories geared toward the DIY set. Ladyada was gracious enough to take a few minutes to explain a little about what makes Arduino boards so cool--and useful--to anyone who's ever wanted to build or hack their own devices.

Arduino is described by its makers as "an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software", whatever that means. In short, it is a popular open-source electronic board that is capable of controlling just about any DIY hardware project. And there's a lot you can do with it.

As Ladyada explains: