Arduino is an open-source hardware platform for building interactive electronic projects. It consists of both a physical programmable circuit board (or microcontroller) and a piece of software, or IDE that runs on your computer, used to write and upload computer code to the physical board. Arduino boards can sense the environment by receiving inputs from sensors and can affect the physical world by controlling lights, motors and other physical devices. The microcontroller on the board is programmed using the Arduino programming language and the Arduino development environment to read and write to various components like LEDs, sensors, and other actuators. Common examples of Arduino projects include thermostats, traffic lights, home alarms, and robots.