Seems AVR programming is programming chips on small devices. I could make a coffee maker that turns on in the morning at set time, or control a basic DC motor in ways that are not usual (adjust speed with pulse, stepping, etc), a sensor that detects water in basement to turn on a pump, USB controlled missle launcher, spinning POV LED with programmable scrolling text, display temperature in digital on LCD plus turn on air conditioner when too hot for sever farm, and thousands of other things could be made.

FROM WIKI:

An AVR Arduino hobby kit is a physical computing platform based on a simple open hardware design for a single-board microcontroller with embedded I/O support and a standard programming language. The Arduino programming language is based on Wiring and is essentially C/C++ (several simple transformations are performed before passing to avr-gcc). The goal of projects is to make available accessible tools that are low-cost, low capital investment, flexible and easy-to-use for artists and hobbyists who might not otherwise have access to more sophisticated controllers requiring more complicated tools. An Arduino board consists of an RISC 8-bit Atmel AVR microcontroller with complementary components to facilitate programming and incorporation into other circuits. Official Arduinos have used the Atmel.com's megaAVR series of chips, specifically the ATmega8, ATmega168, ATmega328, and ATmega1280. A handful of other processors have been used by Arduino clones. Most boards include a 5-volt linear regulator and a 16MHz crystal oscillator (or ceramic resonator in some variants), although some designs such as the LilyPad run at 8Mhz and dispense with the onboard voltage regulator due to specific form-factor restrictions. An Arduino's microcontroller is also pre-programmed with a bootloader that simplifies uploading of programs to the on-chip flash memory, compared with other devices that typically need an external chip programmer.