Tom Igoe: My name is Tom Igoe, and I'm one of the co-founders of Arduino.
Massimo Banzi: My name is Massimo Banzi. I'm the co-founder of Arduino, a kit that enables everyday people to create digital devices without any previous experience in electronics or software.
Tom Igoe: What you're looking at is a computer. We normally think about a keyboard or a mouse, because those are the physical interfaces to the computer. What we ask people to do is to take this little chip and imagine what the physical interface might look like and then build it.
Some of the simplest examples of Arduino are things like Dance Dance Revolution, where instead of playing a video game with a joystick you're dancing on the floor. Arduino is a small computer that makes it possible for people to build those kind of floor pads and for them to be read by a computer.
Our whole mission has really been to introduce people from all walks of life to the technologies that are part of their lives in a hands-on way, in a way that they not only use them but can make a decision about how they might be built in the future.
Massimo Banzi: Now, the issue is if the number of people who are able or even allowed to turn their ideas into reality is very small, you end up in a world where your choices are very limited. I would like to allow as many people as possible to participate in the designing of the future.
Paola Antonelli: To more about the Arduino, press 3-0-9-0.