Welcome loyal members from Let’s Make Robots!
It doesn’t take a detective to see quite a lot has changed, and you might even be wondering if you took a wrong turn somewhere? Don’t worry - you’re in the right place. Let’s Make Robots was not just a name, it was a collection of people, ideas and a philosophy to learn, build and share. These core values are what makes up the community. Although the name “Let’s Make Robots” is a bit harder to find here, all of the content has been preserved, as well as all of the members. We are all here to Learn, Build and Share, and now there are even more members to do this with, and more ways to do so.
FAQ
Why the merge?
Managing many different sites, with different technology is not easy, and prevents members of one from interacting with members of another. There were quite a few sites:
- RobotShop/Lynxmotion forum
- Let’s Make Robots forum
- RobotShop blog
- Let’s Make Robots blog
- Tutorials
- Live chat
- News posts
The question became how to create one global community, with all of the functionality members want, and with one login? None of the existing framework / back-end seemed ideal for such a task, so a new system / community was created. This will hopefully ensure:
- A LOT more members can interact with each other.
- One single login for all community activities / functionality
- Greatly simplified maintenance / upkeep / addition of features
- All features will now be available to all members
- The new Search now searches ALL content.
Why not keep the name / URL “Let’s Make Robots”?
Merging all of the sites above needed a bit of a compromise, and to grow, a site needs to be well ranked in search engines. Adding the community as part of robotshop.com will ideally add significant SEO ranking and help attract even more members. The keywords “robotics community” are searched for a lot more than “let’s make robots”, so the decision was taken to emphasize “community”.
Why didn’t you ask for feedback first?
Feedback is always appreciated, and every attempt was made not to reduce any previous functionality. From a development standpoint, the ideal solution may not be the easiest to implement. Key members of the community (LMR ambassadors) were invited to give their input privately, and several public pools provided valuable feedback. Although we would want all members to be involved at all stages, it was not possible, and for this we do apologize.
Where’s the Let’s Make Robots logo?
The cute LMR mascot has been “upgraded” to the new RB-1. Robots need to evolve too right? But, the logo can still be found in the dedicated Let’s Make Robots forum section.
LMR members used help with all aspects of the community - what now?
Your contributions were indispensable to creating the community. Thankfully now the weight of maintaining a larger and larger system / community won’t fall on specific volunteers - RobotShop will be here for that. The new community will have various levels of involvement, and those who wish to have responsibilities will have many opportunities. The community is not meant to be heavily moderated, but rather user-focused. We look forward to people helping others, creating content and providing feedback.
Where did all of the sections go?
Start Here; TechTips; Something Else; Challenges; Reviews: all part of the Blog
Robots: Still has its own section
Forum: Still has its own section
Recent: Still has its own section - the home page!
My Account: Still at the top right