The Raspberry Pi Pico is an impressive new microcontroller board for the education market that I think will largely replace the Arduino. It’s cheap (starting at $4), easy to connect to (shows up as a usb drive), and easy to start with (download the current version of Thonny and you are ready to go). Its far more powerful than the Arduino and introduces people to Python rather than a version of C (although it can be programmed in C). And it came out of the gate with a solid introductory book suitable for all ages. Unlike the ESP8266/32 based boards the Pico does not have networking on board. However the convenience, utility, and support for learners with the Pico blows those boards away.  Plus it has a few trick features of its own.

I am currently assembling a number of Pico based kits to teach from at the Rochester Makerspace.