Exposition. Luxury. Amusement (magazine) Wearable Workshop Recap. Arduino is one of the projects aiming to allow designers of all trades easier access to what used to be the exclusive domain of technologists only a few years ago.
Build on Processing, which successfully did the same thing (not only) for visual designers, it offers an easy programming language and a lively community to get you going. Its hardware part consists of an Atmel microcontroller with several inputs to connect all kinds of sensors to and outputs to which motors or other actuators can be attached.