The Heads on Fire Community

Arduino is an integrated circuit that uses an AVR microcontroller which allows the actual programming of the controller into several different languages. Some of the languages are Processing, Flash, and Super Collider.

The Arduino is based on a simple I/O board.  It can be either connected to a computer, or a program can be flashed onto the avr micro controller and be ran without  needing to be connected to a computer.  The arduino also take in sensor information from Phidgets.  Phidgets are small IC's that have a specific purpose, and are modular.  They can connect to the arduino through the use of two wires and a header.  From there, the program that wiill either be ran off of the computer or off of the AVR can take the information from those sensors, and then can process it.

You can also wire your own sensors into the arduino by running the yellow (mot common data wire, may not always be yellow) into one of the analog input ports of the arduino, and then connecting the hot and ground wires (red and black) to the power on the board.  You can use this with pretty much any sensor. Examples on How to Wire Sensors

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             
Lilypad is just like the arduino, except one big difference. It is made for textiles.  What is cool about the lilypad is that because it can be used on clothing, it can be used to create other hardware applications that wouldn't be known before, like a jacket that would have heating coils through out it, that could turn on when the temperature of the wearers body got too low, or turn off when the temperature gets too high.

 Processing is one of the programming languages that can be used to program the Arduino.  Processing is very similar to C# and seems pretty simple to learn.  It's purpose is to extend off of the basis of Java, and extends the ability that Java uses to Draw graphics to the screen.  It is able to be ran through a website so it can extend the functionality of the Arduino throughout the entire internet.

 
Examples: Arduino Being used as a Midi Device Lilypad devices that can be sewn into clothing

This is the Arduino:

The Eagle files are attached.