It's great to see your company grow! Hat tip to DJ and Team.

Also nice to see pictures of your headquarters. Like you printer farm and your plastic enclosures.

Do you know when they are expected to show up in stores?

Cool. I kinda thought all those DJs I had been seeing in the video images showing on the forum main page might be for that purpose. Hope the local Brookstone will carry them. Problem is it's a small store in a mall. Still, I'm a tad chummy with the people there since I got my Parrot Drone. Maybe get them to keep some parts in stock as well as the kits. It would be great to be able to go there and get the odd servo, cable, V4, or connection block as needed. Though I did order a bunch of that stuff with my JD kit so I probably won't need any parts for a while yet, but ya never know. I've been known to inadvertently give components the smoke test from time to time.

Thanks! We will be in all 176 of their stores by August. The demos will be in every store as well

oh btw, @69develper - thanks for the comments on the 3d printing farm. One of them is missing because i have it at my house. The enclosures I made to keep the heat consistent. We found that printing large objects would cause the corners to warp when the material cooled down. With the enclosure, the heat is consistent and the object doesn't warm any longer.

It also keeps the noise down - which puts Jeremie to sleep Because it's very soothing with the enclosures.

Here's the 3d printed parts for the demo robots....

this is the "Fake Camera" that is in JD's head

This is the fake servo that is in JD's ankle

This is the cover that protects the power supply connections. The power supply is hidden behind the shelf. We didn't want any sales associates to get electrocuted so this 3d printed cover protects people and the power supply wires.

wow didn now you had 3D designers there. you cant see that the cam is fake.

Went by the local Brookstone here while I was out and about today. There is a free standing sign at the entrance showing the latest gadgets coming with JDs picture right at the top. Talked to an employee but, of course, he couldn't comit to anything. All he said was they would be stocking an "expansion kit." He's probably referring to the developer's kit. At least I've planted the seed about stocking spare parts beyond just the kits. We'll see. He was also amazed it was already out there (for years) since he had just heard about it. Wondered how others could get it already, it not being stocked in their stores yet. He had no idea. I'm hoping, at the least, the store can get parts I need in faster than I can getting them mail-order, and for free shipping regardless of total dollar value.

As an aside, they are already selling a couple models of nano-drones. One with camera, but no streaming video, just recording to a usb memory stick. Fairly cheap though at about $80-USD. Had it streamed video I would have picked one up on the spot. I've been wanting to get one or two so I've been looking at some with streaming video but they are mostly twice that price. Not sure which one is best yet. Experience with the Parrot Drone 2, however, tells me I want one with excellent hovering stability in a small area as a leading criteria.

You're all elite for having ezrobot way before the rest of the world has heard about it.

They will be stocking parts - and more each month. If you want to encourage beookstone to stock more ezrobot parts, let them know. They listen to their customers. The new CEO is a great guy and is working to make brookstone into an innovation store. They read their product comments, you can leave a comment here: http://www.brookstone.com/ez-robot-jd-humanoid-revolution-robot-kit

Be cautious of those little nano drones. They are hard to fly and every one I've had is broke.

@nomad.... Who do you think designed all their Revolution robots and ez bits? Cory did CAD design for ez robot when he worked there. I know that DJ also has some experience in 3D design himself too....

goodmorning richard R

i just though they make the standard parts only.

I designed plastics for six and jd. Cory was hired to fine tune my designs and create a few new ones - such as cubes, etc...

When we got to the point of tooling the mold for injection, the manufacturer came back and said we had many issues with the design and advised that we have a professional company help us tweak them for tooling. They didn't tell us what we were missing and because the parts worked well and were 3d printed we assumed it would be okay.

We contracted a local company to assist us with tooling. We were missing much at all - however, there was one important feature which is highly recommended for your mold to last a long time. It's drafting the parts so the eject better. Not all startups are aware of this and it's why our plastics have a very professional fit and polish. The draft angles the sides of all molds so they can be pushed out of the tool with ease.

The contracting company helped us do that.

Finally, the next challenge was getting the clipping figments exact. We started by making our molds too big. The parts would be too small / but that was on purpose. You can cut material from the mold much much easier than adding material.

So we did many revisions. Each revision cut a little more material from the mold until it all worked.

We have a total of 18 molds, I believe? And 50 cavities... That's hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of molds alone, not including the design costs and revisions. It's a very pricy job - specifically when dimensional size resolution is so important.

If we were making little toys or cases for stuff, it would have costed less and taken less time. It's the resolution that we needed.

@DJ With all the money and time you sank into producing these molds.... does EZ Robot own them? I mean if you ever have to switch manufacturers can you take the molds with you?

dj

special items cost money.but am very thankfull you did it. i met a new friend here in belgium and he's gonna by six. he will come to my house to test and play with six i know if you store will be full with all the parts,you will be the only store, who has all items availeble means lots off new customers and new models off robots.

thank you

Yeah - we own all of the molds and IP. However, the biggest challenge with switching manufacturers is the compatibility of the mold machines. If the machines are not the same, the molds are not compatible. We have been looking at a few new manufacturers to help us scale. We have to ensure it makes sense financially before we switch - the biggest expenditure is doubling inventory while parallel manufacturing. What I mean is, when we switch to a new manufacturer, we cannot stop our sales so we would need to have inventory for two companies.

While most companies have a 500-1000% markup on items, we do not. To keep our product accessible, we keep our costs low and in return the community helps fill in the gap.

@DJ... Wow.... EZ Robot has had enviable growth over the last 2 years.... Forget Apple, 20 years from now marketing students going to be studying ez robot to see how successful company's really do it.... I dabble in some stocks....mostly big safe Canadian blue chip.... I do have a couple of US stock, however. I would never touch tech stock with a 10ft pole. However if ez robot ever went public... I know you would never do it, but if you did I would buy as many shares as I could afford.... and retire in the Bahamas.... LOL

When did you get a fisheye lens @DJ? Our office looks so much bigger haha