[ajray]

I'm a student in Electrical and Computer Engineering, so Microcontrollers are bread and butter to me, but what really has amazed me about this platform is the number of non-EE's I see and help use it.

For engineers, the idea of using a wii nunchuck to control color LED's is trivial. For an artist or a design it can be world-changing. And our local arduino group does just that :-)

[johnohara]

The AVR/GCC library of pre-written routines plus the ability to easily upload "sketches" to the board makes the Arduino environment very approachable for non-propeller types.

They're doing a nice job and deserve the positive recognition.

Here in the U.S., SparkFun and BDMicro have built nice niches in this market.

SparkFun's Pick and Place Machine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn0EKtLOVx4