The Arduino’s popularity amazes me- no commercial for-profit marketing campaign. Just grass-roots/groundswell demand.
Microcontrollers have traditionally had a very high entry-barrier for non-engineers. The Arduino is the perfect storm of cost, approachability and availability. The Arduino platform has a high amount of polish, it plugs directly into a USB port without requiring an expensive and/or cranky programming tool, and it has a wealth of examples that are welll documented and are newbie friendly.stevech:
The Arduino’s popularity amazes me- no commercial for-profit marketing campaign. Just grass-roots/groundswell demand.
As a professional programmer I get asked for recommendations about techy stuff all the time. I love the fact that Arduino chose to go C/C++ instead of something like BASIC or worse, some other language developed out of thin air. I can recommend Arduino with good conscience.
I think one of the keys to its success were places like Sparkfun, Adafruit and the other webshops that cater to the hobbyist crowd. While I know how to navigate DigiKey, I’m usually looking at Sparkfun first for ideas and the discussions on the various parts. SF takes PayPal which I prefer because my CC company throws a fit on Internet orders.
Hello,
I just wanted to bring an update on this thread since it seemed to be pointing to having to select either Arduino or a Board of Education from Parallax. It was a “this vs. that” selection or “either-or” which made sound as if Parallax and Arduino where in opposite sides of the road or in some kind of antagonism. Maybe at the time of the question, it was true that there was not a kit to bridge the gap.
Parallax customers (teachers) from schools that switched to Arduino have been asking Parallax Education staff for a while to generate some Parallax hardware and documentation that would be compatible with Arduino.
Our answer was the Board of Education Shield for Arduino (or BOE Shield for short). The new BOE Shield was just listed for pre-order and we’re beginning to post material that not only explains how to use the Parallax BOE Shield, but also Arduino in general.
http://www.parallax.com/BOEShield
We will print the “Robotics with the BOE Shield for Arduino” book soon but first will be posting the whole book online (for free access) as it comes available chapter by chapter at learn.parallax.com:
http://learn.parallax.com/ShieldRobot
You can currently access the first chapter of the book which shows an introduction on Arduino and students can follow this chapter with just an Arduino hooked to their PC (they don’t even need any Parallax hardware in Chapter 1).
I’m pretty sure that SparkFun, as Parallax distributor, will be soon selling the BOE Shield and the Robotics Shield Kit which comes with everything you need, except the Arduino, to get the BOE Shield-Bot running, but first they need to know about it. 
I’ll be in contact with SparkFun later this week, unless they also work on Sundays. 
Regards,
Ari Alvarez
Education Manager - Parallax US
President - Parallax Hong Kong