RobotShop Acquires LetsMakeRobots.com

Community General Discussions
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RobotShop, the leading source for robots and robot parts on the web already hosts one of the largest communities of robot and drone enthusiasts. In 2010, in order to better serve their community by providing free information and articles accessible to all, RobotShop acquired GoRobotics.net, one of the most popular and oldest blogs on robots. GoRobotics has since been fully integrated with the RobotShop community and is considered the #1 source of knowledge in robotics for robot lovers. Following the acquisition of Lynxmotion in 2012, a pioneer of educational robotics since 1995, Lynxmotion.net, one of the most vibrant forums of the early days of robotics development was also integrated with the RobotShop community, providing a single platform for all robotics enthusiasts to share knowledge and projects.

"RobotShop exists in order to serve makers and users of robots. It’s our community and our customers that allow us to become better every day." said Mario Tremblay, CEO of RobotShop. "We plan to work with members of the LMR community to provide all the tools, features, privileges and resources to enable them to create, innovate, share, inspire, and even be recognized and be paid for their input and contributions. In this sense, we have a multitude of ideas, projects and programs that we want to put in place, but we will first and foremost listen, communicate and take into consideration the opinions and desires of the LMR and RobotShop communities. Together we will build robots and push the evolution even further."

LMR was founded in 2008 by Danish tech-wiz, Frits Lyneborg and is undoubtedly the #1 hobby robotics community. LMR includes a variety of features including robot profiles, a blog, forum, product reviews, challenges, a “Chill out” area as well as a real time public chat for members that is present throughout the platform. Recently a Beta marketplace was put in place that allows members to buy and sell new and used parts between users. LetsMakeRobots is animated by a spirit of friendship and the place has become a favorite gathering for the most brilliant, ingenious and creative "geeks" and "nerds".

"The Lets Make Robots project has been a large part of my life for the last 7 years. I cannot count how many friends I have made though the site, and it's hard to put words on the spirit of 'togetherness' that seems to live by itself within the members of LMR." Indicates Frits Lyneborg, creator of Let’s Make Robots. "What started out as a few friends, has turned into a global community with an absolutely enormous amount of data and daily visits, very difficult to manage by a small team. What RobotShop offers is a solid base and I'm confident that with a strong partner that has a genuine interest in all things robotics, the Let's Make Robots community will be able to flourish and expand."

For more information about Let’s Make Robots, visit http://www.letsmakerobots.com

About RobotShop inc.
RobotShop is the world's leading robot store for personal and professional robot technology. It provides personal, domestic and professional robots, development platforms, kits, and specialized robotic parts. RobotShop is also an important source for robotics education and research.

For more information on RobotShop, please visit https://www.robotshop.com

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I like the non-“professional” ambience here
Hello,

I know I am a new member but I have been browsing and reading LMR for some time now. I enjoyed it a lot, especially because it seems to have a genuine, playful, and enthusiastic ambiance with at the same time many ambitious and knowledgeable people.

It’s refreshing and motivating.

Please don’t turn this rare gem on the net into yet another commercial site, that merely exists to promote products.

A little “unprofessionalism” goes a long way to create the charm this site has.

I know RobotShop and bought from you (and was pleased!). Nonetheless, my first reaction when reading this announcement was the feeling I might have missed the best time to join LMR.

Please don’t just make it a subproject of your site, it would loose a lot (including maybe credibility).

On the other hand I understand the costs involved from hosting and managing a site from experience.

Excuse my panic reaction, I just thought I should rather share my thoughts before it’s too late and hope this will benefit all involved parties.

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**My sentiments exactly **

My sentiments exactly 

4

Looking to the Future

I am looking forward to seeing what new tools and interesting ideas that will be presented.

At the same time I think we should have more contest like a mini darpa challenge.

I believe that by doing these contest can bring the community together and promote growth.

I would also like to stress the importatance of not putting any tools in place that would block any of our members from being able to access the site.

Looking forward to hearing your input on our ideas and thoughts.

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Welcome to LMR!

I’m excited to see the next steps forward, but with that comes a great deal of trepidation. LMR has come to be my favorite place on the internet bar none, even though I’m not overly active in terms of posts. I also have to say I’ve made a number of purchases on RobotShop over the years and enjoy that site as well, especially as a Canadian. With this said, please don’t ‘assimilate’ this site as OB put it. The independence of this site is a very large part of why it has so many members. Please do listen to what we have to say here.

I’d propose that all major changes should be discussed openly and voted upon by active members of the site, and/or a committee formed by the community ‘elders’ (I believe Ladvien posted a list of elders from a while back; is a good one to work from) who have real input into how the site moves ahead.

As far as suggestions for the site itself, I’m working on a list and will update once I have some more thoughts. I know others have many great ideas that if implemented well could make this site even better than it already is.

-Matt

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Hi everyone and thank you for the warm welcome

My name is Mario Tremblay and I am the founder and CEO of RobotShop (feel free to call me Mario or Cameleon here). What I appreciate and admire most about LMR is how members take ownership of the site; this is the kind of thinking I try to indoctrinate into all the people here at RobotShop and is what differentiates us from others. For this reason I can appreciate the initial responses to this announcement and understand that you want to defend LMR against any possible intruders. Please keep it up and continue to share your opinions.

We have no intention of adding commercial banners everywhere; we do not need nor want to generate revenue this way nor risk tarnishing our reputation with the community. RobotShop is the most visited robotic related site in the world and people know if they need any robotic products they can come to us. Promoting products is nevertheless important because it’s what pays the bills and is what empowers us to take action to try to change the world for the better. However, selling products is not the main objective here; for example if we promote / discuss a product designed by an LMR member who is participating in the RobotShop Accelerator Program, we would hope the community would embrace and support it. RobotShop offers thousands of products from hundreds of manufacturers & inventors and some of you already work for our suppliers and manufacturers. For example (correct me if I’m wrong) but OddBot is affiliated with Dagu, and we have had a pretty good and lasting relationship with them!

When I started to talk with Frits back in 2010 about a possible partnership between our two organisations, we shared lots of ideas, one of which was to start a marketplace where members could sell and buy used or new robot parts. I know from having built many robots that all builders have functional but unused parts on their shelves and rather than gathering dust, why not sell them? This is beneficial for the environment and everybody is happy! This feature may not be so good for RobotShop though because we may sell fewer new parts, though when you understand our mission and why we exist, we hope you start to trust in us so we can start building something big together.

"At RobotShop, our vision is to be the world’s leading source for personal and professional robot technology that helps increase the pleasure, knowledge, liberty and security of individuals. We are also committed to promoting and advocating the interest and necessity of robotics towards positive ends, allowing humanity to achieve a better world."

All acquisitions RobotShop has made so far have been for particular reasons; GoRobotics was a huge database of educational information about the industry and how to build robots. We wanted to ensure it became the #1 destination (“Go - Robotics”) where everyone could learn about robotics, easily find the parts they need and more. The Lynxmotion forum is an integral part of Lynxmotion and exists mostly to support Lynxmotion products. The merged forum continues to welcome people to discuss and showcase their projects. Because of the nature of the blog and the forum we took the decision to merge them with RobotShop and things seem to have gone pretty well. 

LMR is different. Although I cannot say that it will never be merged, what I can say is that if it is, it will be because the LMR community has requested it. We want to create the biggest robotics community where everybody can find what they are looking for; from information, help and support, projects and products to friends and even employment. The greater our numbers, the more we’ll be able to accomplish and the bigger the impact all of us will have. Consider the impact if a member’s blog post is read by thousands rather than hundreds, or if a challenge becomes global and attracts larger sponsors, better prizes and more creativity? What if the LMR / RobotShop community becomes the place where the new champions of technology meet, share ideas and shine? What if “our voice” is listened to by popular media, politicians, companies and other decision makers?

I outlined this in the press release to assure the community that RobotShop intends to listen and communicate openly. I’m a man of my word and you can trust in RobotShop and its people. Robotics is moving fast… really fast and this is just the beginning. Stick around because lots of amazing things are coming and LMR is one of the best places  to be part of it.

We are all robots builders!

7

Uh, ok.

So far I’ve seen LetsmakeRobots as a nice place where to ask non-corporate influenced opinions.
And so far i’ve seen ads from e-commerces badly received or ignored. Some ads that were disguised as robot posts generated heated arguments.

I guess that, if this site gets heavily commercialized another site-community will raise to fill the gap, as a place where hobbist can show what they had done and discuss, chat freely.

What will happen to the marketplace? Will be merged to the robotshop site?

Another kind of popular posts of LMR is where and what to buy, so i foresee it will be some cheerful “buy from robotshop” when it happen. It wouldn’t mind me - really - as robotshop is a great e-commerce in Italy, and i bought many products last year.
What i fear is moderation when someone not suggests robotshop.
Robot posts based on Robotshop bought parts will have a “featured” treatment?

Lately i buy most of parts directly from chinese companies, which are cheaper than most of the parts sold by robotshop.
What will happen if i post about where to find the cheapest ESP8266 or motor driver?

Are you going to make challanges?

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RE

If they change this site to an ugly propaganda device. Then we can just start a new Robotshop free website!



EDIT

I wanted to add more to my post.

I don’t hate Robotshop. It is on my short list of preferred suppliers. So I don’t hate the idea of them owning this website as long as they allow it to stay open to everyone, and moderated by the members, without gobs of advertisements. But on the flip side they are not my preferred parts supplier due to a few poor customer service issues in the past. Its not acceptable to make your customers wait weeks for parts that you cannot provide!

I can share this publicly now that Frits is not in the picture. But I am happy to see the LMR store go away after I got ripped off by a seller on it. I would not be upset if they simply changed the link to the Robotshop store page. Then got rid of the present LMR store.

Frits created a great thing here. I hope the new owners can understand the big picture of his genius and allow it to stay what LMR was always intended to be.

Last thing I would like there to be a spell checker added onto the forum tool bar.

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Welcome Cameleon

And thanks for the reassurances. As you’ve noticed we’re very protective of this place. I look forward to seeing how this progresses.

Edited to fix my typo