Arduino is an open source platform with simple software and hardware. You can pick it up in short time even if you are a beginner. It provides an integrated development environment (IDE) for code compiling, compatible with multiple control boards. So you can just download the Arduino IDE, upload the sketches (i.e. the code files) to the board, and then you can see relative experimental phenomena. For more information, refer to http://www.arduino.cc.
Arduino is a great hardware platform for open source projects that can sense the environment via kinds of sensors and thus influence it by controlling devices such as lights and motors. Having been popular since its existence, Arduino is an open source platform with simple hardware (different types of Arduino boards) and software (Arduino IDE), flexible and easy to use. It’s particularly suitable for the amateurs, artists, designers and makers who are interested in interaction. By writing the code in Arduino IDE and uploading the program (or sketch, as called) to the Arduino board, they control the Arduino board via program.