To listen to some bloggers and youtubers, it was practically a joke: The objective of the exercise is to make an LED blink. “Seriously?!?” “Just wait: In the next exercise, we’ll make the LED dim!”

For some of us, this was a serious, “mind blown!” moment. “Holy fuck! Don’t you get it?!? It’s not the LED; it’s ANYTHING!”

The Arduino was Pure Fucking Magic: an inexpensive device bridging the “imaginary” world inside a computer into reality. Upload a simple bit of C-like code to the device through a USB connection, and “Let there be light!” You are a god! If it wasn’t clear, they gave you a second chance: Use similar code to spin a motor! Holy shit – you’re using software to control something that does physical work! Turn the page and you see that you can read sensors as well! You can detect when someone presses a button? Seriously?!? How about how bright it is in the room? Temperature and humidity? Measure distance with a sonar-like capability? Incorporate sensor inputs into your logic and decide what the actuators should do? Suddenly, there are limitless possibilities.

LIMITLESS!

Everything that follows is an integration problem, working out how connect different sensors and actuators connected to the physical world into the 5V header pins and on to the software choices beneath.

Now consider: What if no one ever saw beyond the blinking light? “Is that all it does?” The product dies, yes? No one shares the creator’s vision. No one buys it. It dies. It happens. Now consider this: What if a crazed cult formed around just the blinking light? Singular, obsessive focus. Indistractable. The physical aspect succeeds while the creator’s vision dies.

I feel like there’s a lot like that these days, fingers pointing at the moon…

More on this later.