Questionaire, Robotics Market.

[ScottSavage]

1. Which forum, message board or group do you belong to?
2. Country of robotics practise?
3. What is your current age?
4. How many years have you currently been interested in the hobby of robotics
5. Which website(s)/ shop(s) do you purchase your robotics hobby materials
6. What is your weekly budget for robotics hobby materials
7. How much are you willing to spend on specialist equipment, for instance a 3D Printer or a CNC Router?
8. Have you seen a difference in the amount of people interested in the robotics hobby over the past 3 years?
9. If yes to above how would you describe the growth Slow, Medium or Rapid?
10. What attracted you to start or rekindle your interest in robotics?
11. How many hours a week do spend practising robotics?
12. Is there a need for a 3D printer in your field of hobby?
13. If yes to the above question, how much are you willing to spend on such equipment?
14. When was the last time you spent over £150 pounds on robotics materials?

Thank you very much for filling this out.

 

[dknguyen]

1. ELectrotech, DIYDrones, Wattflyer, RCCrawler, and a bunch of other RC forums.
2. Canada
3. 24
4. >10 years
5. Digikey, Mouser, Iftron Tech, Esprit Model, RCATS Systems, All ERC, Great Hobbies, Sparkfun, Acroname, DIY Drones, Superdroid Robots, Robotshop Canada, HVWTech, and others
6. No budget? If a component or system is better, I'm willing to spend more. Maxed out at around $500 per component or system (which tends to be things like processing modules, motor, or development tools).
7. $1500 for mechanical fabrication (if I had that to spare) if it could do enough things that I would need it in a large enough number of areas. For development tools, about $500 max.
8. Yes
9. I think it may be I'm just more of things going on around me, but I am still going to say slow.
10. Start- creating machines that do more than just process information, but can manipulte the world around them
Rekindle- personal resources and increased availability (cost-wise and just simple availability) of components and systems that do what I want them to do.
11. Too much, but mostly research. (ie. look before you dish out confirm the design and dish out the cash for parts and tools) 3-5 hours a day maybe? WHenever I have spare time.
12. Don't think so. But I am finding a recent need for too many custom, small, load bearing, mechanical structures that would be too expensive for me to have made. Primarily parts to mount sensors externall in unusual areas on something like a UAV airframe. That kind of thing.
13. It really depends on the materials it works with and ease of use. I'm going to say $300-$500 to start. Quite a bit more if it can work with stronger materials.
14. Two weeks ago.

 

[cowana]

1. This one, PICAXE forum, 4HV, RCUniverse, Wattflier, RC Groups and a couple of others
2. UK
3. 17
4. 8
5. Sparkfun, Techsupplies, Rapid electronics, Farnell, ebay (lots), Various metal suppliers, various component suppliers... must be close to 100 different companies overall.
6. It's not a weekly budget, but a 'per project' budget. Depends on the project, but could be several hundred pounds.
7. I bought a lathe (~£350) and a mill (~£400)
8. A bit
9. Slow/medium
10. It's fun and enjoyable
11. 40 or 50 hours
12. I need one ocassionally, but so infrequently that it would not justify spending much money at all on one.
13. £100
14. A few weeks ago.