Arduino is not the next big thing; it's arguably a few years past its peak. But the thing is, it's really really fast to prototype stuff. Last week I needed t

Arduino is not the next big thing; it's arguably a few years past its peak. But the thing is, it's really really fast to prototype stuff. Last week I needed to convert an analog voltage to a pulse width -- I had a potentiometer and I wanted to control an ESC. It took me less than 10 minutes to breadboard and code that on an Arduino clone (Teensy). The week before, I needed a frequency counter. Again, it took less than 10 minutes. I've done more elaborate projects, but the point is that the overhead to get started is tiny.