The board was hooked up to a lighting fixture Holbert is working on as part of NASA's upcoming deep space habitat concept generator.

ENGADGET

But in spite of Arduino's near ubiquity these days, we'll admit that we were a bit taken aback when the familiar blue microcontroller made an appearance on a lab desk during our conversation with NASA "lighting guy, " Dr. Eirik Holbert.

ENGADGET

Mr. Holbert, 39, is one of more than 100 students in the Prison Entrepreneurship Program, an initiative organized by a Houston nonprofit of the same name that teaches business skills to prisoners who will soon be released, including market research, finance and professional etiquette.

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