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Microcontrollers
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A microcontroller or microcontroller unit (MCU) is a small computer on a single integrated circuit. 
A microcontroller contains one or more CPUs along with memory and programmable input/output peripherals.

Arduino
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Arduino is an open-source electronics platform based on easy-to-use hardware and software.


ESP8266
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The ESP8266 is a low-cost Wi-Fi microcontroller, with built-in TCP/IP networking software, and microcontroller capability, 
produced by Espressif Systems in Shanghai, China


ESP32
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ESP32 is a series of low-cost, low-power system on a chip microcontrollers with integrated Wi-Fi and dual-mode Bluetooth, 
produced by Espressif Systems in Shanghai, China.

ESP32 is a successor of the ESP8266 microcontroller.

ESP32 is a dual-core 160MHz to 240MHz CPU, whereas the ESP8266 is a single-core processor that runs at 80MHz. Both CPUs are 32-bit.
ESP32 has more RAM than ESP8266.


Raspberry Pi Pico
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The Raspberry Pi Pico is a microcontroller board based on the RP2040 microcontroller chip.


Useful resources
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* `Platformio <https://platformio.org/>`_ - an open-source ecosystem for embedded development. It allows working with various MCUs 
  (such as ARM Cortex, AVR, MSP430), development boards, frameworks, and environments (Arduino, ESP-IDF, and many others).

* `MicroPython <https://micropython.org/>`_ - is a software implementation of a programming language largely compatible with Python 3, written in C,
  that is optimized to run on a microcontroller. MicroPython consists of a Python compiler to bytecode and a runtime interpreter of that bytecode

* `CircuitPython <https://circuitpython.org/>`_ -  is an open-source derivative of the MicroPython programming language targeted toward students and 
  beginners. Development of CircuitPython is supported by Adafruit Industries

* `micro-ROS <https://micro.ros.org/>`_ - is an open source project to realize ROS2 on a microcontroller in various robot applications. 
  By using a common framework, it enables interoperability with conventional robots, IoT sensors and devices.