Ar-du-what's-it?

Up until a few days ago I had never heard of an Arduino.  Even after I "heard" of it, I had actually only read of it.  So I had to mentally run through possible pronunciations. I quickly discovered that it was Italian.  I did a little research; and between what I read on Wikipedia and the official Arduino Forums, my best guess at the pronunciation is:

Arrrr, as in pirate
Dew, as in drop
Ee, as in ee  (not to be confused with EE as in electrical engineer)
and No, as in know

I asked my husband, who designs and teaches electronics for a living, if he had ever heard of something called an Arduino.  He was vaguely familiar with the name.  Then he asked me the big question, "What is it?"

"It's programmable microcontroller used in electronic prototyping," I said with tentative authority.

I clearly was already in over my head because I wasn't sure what prototyping was in this context.  I understood programmable and microcontroller.  Maybe two out of three was not so bad?  I figured that he would know what that meant.  Of course, I was hoping he could tell me what the Ar-du-thing was.  That was not to be.

"But what is it?" he asked once again.

"It's programmable microcontroller used in electronic prototyping," I stated.  This time I tried to sound more sure of myself.

"But what is it?" he asked once again, firmly.

I answered him as I had before.  Clearly, he wasn't satisfied.  I was starting to wonder if he really was the electronics genius that I always thought he was.

Finally, he asked, "What chip does it use?"

I was sitting in front of my computer, so I clicked on a link to the Adafruit catalog listing and gave him the answer he wanted.  "It's an A-T-mega328," I said proudly.

"Atmel," he said with the ease of years of experience. (It actually sounded like "At-meh" to me at the time, but I figured it out, later.)

"Well, I want one for my birthday," not wanting to have to actually try to pronounce the "Ar" word again.

"But your birthday is still months away."

"I know, but I'm hoping I can learn some more electronics with it, or at least remember what I've forgotten; and that's what I will want.  I'm just planning ahead.  The experimentation kit that I want is not in stock right now, anyway."