hobbiest robot demographics

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I wonder what the demographics of hobbiest robotics looks like today
in regard to the choice of computer and software in the robots that
people are using.  I have absolutely no idea how many people have
robots
that use pic processors, or basic stamps, or pda, or game devices, or
pc,
or some combination etc.

Is there any source of an estimate of how many robots of these
different
types exist out there?  Perhaps some vendors or club members have some
estimates or numbers.

The catagories could of course be broken down in many different
ways.  I wonder what the numbers might be for catagies like
these:

___ rtosbot pc rtos based
___ pcbot pc custom code based
___ dosbot pc dos based
___ Linbot pc Linux based
___ Winbot pc Windows based (or pda w/ WinCE)
___ FPGAbot fpga or programmable logic based
___ ucontroller assembly based
___ ucontroller BASIC in ROM based
___ ucontroller OO Basic in ROM based
___ ucontroller programmed in C or C++
___ ucontroller JAVA in ROM based
___ ucontroller Forth in ROM based
___ mechanical logic based
___ other

People occasionally argue about which they personally prefer
to buy/build/program but that doesn't tell me how large each
of the above type of hobbiest robot groups might be.  The
numbers have to be very small compared to the number of those
devices being used for things other than robots but I have no
idea how many roboticists are working with each of these
different types of hobby robots.  (Let's say that the ones
I listed as ROM based don't have to have that language in
the ROM of the microcontroller, just the language used for
the robot programming.)

I am not asking which you prefer or why, there are other
threads for that.  I just wondered if anyone has any idea
how the demographics of hobbiest robotics breaks down in
regard to the type of computer used in hobby robots.
Maybe people who sell kits, write magazine articles, or
belong to active clubs have some idea how these things
break down.

Best Wishes


Re: hobbiest robot demographics

You can compile at least some of the statistics you're looking for by
going through the various "robot galleries" you'll find on the web,
starting with robots.net. Also try the robolinks page on robotbooks.com.
This will be a small sampling, but if your search is thorough enough, it
might be apportionally representative of what's out there.

As far as anyone having these statistics already made up, not that I
know of. Perhaps you could compile them and post them for anyone else
who is interested in the same data.

-- Gordon


fox@ultratechnology.com wrote:

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