Where Are The Best Amateur Robotic Discussion Groups?

Search all you want, but this is the only real newsgroup focusing on robotics and minimizing spam.

I've never seen any decent ones. The robotics community is very spread out, unfortunately. It'd be nice if everybody could get more centralized.

Some of robot club mailing lists can be pretty lively.

We have a lot of people on the Home Brew Robotics club mailing list who live too far away to make it to our monthly meetings, but contribute to the list. (One of our members moved to Finnland, but still contributes.) The HBRC home page is at:

The HBRC mail archive is open an can be found at:

You can browse through the archive to decide whether or not you want to join.

To subscribe to the HBRC mail list, please visit:

I have heard that both the Dallas and Seattle clubs have lively lists (although I do not yet subscribe):

Dallas -- DPRG Seattle -- SRS

I'm sure that there are other club lists that are interesting as well.

My $.02,

-Wayne

Thanks for the responses so far but I would expect that there are more discussion groups out there....but where?

TMT

Why don't you try a specific question and see what kind of a response you get from the people here?

There are other groups that focus more on the sub topics.

For example there's rec.crafts.metalworking But as the name suggests, they focus more on the "make it from metal" part.

sci.engr.control is more for automation. Similar groups for electronics etc.

DOC

Any sufficiently complicated machine can be called a robot.

"Why don't you try a specific question and see what kind of a response you get from the people here? "

Good idea but I tend to be a lurker and only come out when I need some specific information.

One learns more listening than talking. ;

Okay, after asking the original question of "Where are the BEST amateur robotic discussion groups?" and getting only one answer with leads I guess it is time to ask the next question....

"Where are ANY amateur robotic discussion groups that you would recommend?"

Thanks

TMT

--FWIW I know of several; some are good, some are so-so. -parallax.com has a big board with lotsa postings, but you've gotta be into the Stamp architecture to appreciate it. Also it's divided into interesting categories and sometimes I get the impression that whoever's in charge of reading postings at the company doesn't do it daily so a question can go unanswered for a very long time (weeks). -Yahoo has a Stamp group and a robotics group and there are quite a few members but again I get the idea folks don't log in daily and questions can linger a long time waiting for a response. Not sure who started the group and not sure how expert the answers are either. -Tribe has a couple of groups relating to electronics and robotics. I started the Basic Stamp Tribe, but there's little activity at the moment. I like Tribe because you can upload photos, schematics, etc and because it's divided into regional zones so you tend to be talking to folks who live within driving distance of you. -Still and all I think that our usenet group is the best, because its "legacy" status means that the folks who've been there, done that hang out here more than anywhere else.

Another good robotic discussion can be found on the Robomo website (robomo.com). This is the Missouri Area Robotics Society (used to be called MARS). They have a lot of basic information and resources.

AJ Zagros Robotics

Wayne C. Gramlich wrote:

Stop singing and finish your homework.

I've been done with it for a few years. Last I heard, Porgy was caught in Parallel Hell. Personally, I prefer Nick Danger, but how did this thread go so off topic? 3M and the holograms are about a close as Firesign ever got to robots.

Recent addition was my own minisumo.org.uk but that is more specialist (and slow as still establishing itself - blocked more spam bots than total number of real users!)

I do have listings & links to other forums relating to various microcontrollers and general robotics. My favourite remains to be :-

robotbuilder.co.uk

Traffic goes up and down but there's a good bunch there, mostly UK but several regulars from around the globe.

best regards, colin

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