Hi Will, thanks for the honorable mention. I think a lot of us have turned into lurkers. I visit almost everyday to see what's happening. Life is busy and interests change priority. My B9 project hasnen't stopped but other things need attention and other dreams need to be followed. This winter he's due for some major upgrades. Lots of video to follow.

I think a big reason is that the EZ Robot is so stable and simple that not many people come here for help. Only the extremely new that need a helping hand to get started and people with hardware problems and incompatibility issues.

Then there was the focus switch by EZ Robot and this forum from DIY robot building to the pre built and programed Revolution kits. I understand that Revolution pays the bills for EZ Robot. Also EZ has been very good in advancing the product to include DIY needs. Thanks! However this websits focus has necessarily killed most interest in collaborating with others designing their own EZ Robot based robots. It's almost like EZ wants the more experienced users to be the first line customer support for the newcomers. It's a good business model but leads to dissolution and exhaustion of your customer base. This is just me opinion though.

I think the turning point was when DJ said there would never be a section set up on this forum for the more experienced builders to gather and discuss and their project development and problems. Again, just my opinion.

I don't think you'll ever see the interest in this forum you saw a few years ago. Partly because of what I stated above but also partly because EZ Robot is not a new thing anymore. I'm not saying it's not one of a kind or better than anything else out there. I'm sure that sales are still good for Revolution and the push into educational platforms are helping DJ to pay the salaries and ongoing bills. However until there is a way for EZ to reinvent their platform to spark more interest to the DIY crowd to be using EZ Robot and a place like other forums have for us to meet separate from the customer service needs I sadly think this will be a dieing forum. tired I hope I'm wrong. sick Maybe things are quiet is because everyone was enjoying a nice summer.

From my stand point, I jumped in when I was younger and was enjoying the new experience. Ez-robot gave me a way to build things I wanted to build. It also inspired me to build new things. What I learned from my experiences I have taken into other aspects of my life, and have used them as a guide for my future career.

Since then I have gradually drifted away from the forum. The repetitive questions and growing lack of though provoking, insightful questions didn’t keep me engaged, and further and further I got from the forum. I still pop in once in a while, but I rarely use and ez-robot equipment at this point.

I agree with Dave that there needs to be a new inspiring push for DIY guys like us. We are the tech support really, but we aren’t going to keep working for free’ if we aren’t interested in the stuff we’re doing around it.

If DJ is working on something new for our kind, he needs to show us! Or someone needs to create a challenge which pushes everyone to do something outside of our comfort zone.

These are interesting comments. I am relatively new to the forum so I didn't know about the 'olden' days. I put up my inmoov thread. Maybe not innovating but I feel that was a DIY project of interest. I see quite a few DIY projects there. were there many more and how in-depth were they in the past? I posted heavily for a bit, mostly pic's of what I was doing or a question about things I couldn't do. Then it turned out the software was really easy to use, and the hardware was stable. I stopped coming back to ask the questions and try to answer them now. I like your comment about a more in-depth section on DIY. Even a tougher community robot. We all have experience from real life, you would be amazed what be accomplished. Tasks for mech people, design people, elec, controls , etc. We could have have something like a Boston Dynamics running dog built in house. DJ could supply the equipment, others sectors could supply the plastcs/materials. We would design and 3D print it. We would be DJ's development team. He could keep it as it would be awesome marketing and probably a new product to sell. Then he realizes that he needs a 2 tiered product portfolio. One aimed at what he does now and another more powerful "stage II" line that are much more configurable. So after that DJ can put an Advanced section in the forum.

I took artistic licence between start and finish but it ended up with an Advanced section in the forum. lol

Maybe some of us are working on something secretly outside the forum threads. cool

I would second the feeling like the software and hardware is super stable and easy and at this point also well documented both in the software and all the videos so I can usually find what I need on my own. Then when I do discover something neat or come up with a clever script I never share it because I think to my self, no one is gonna care about this, it’s probably silly anyway. Whereas back in the day a lot of us would share every little script or project update because it was like a new treasure, like, oh my gosh, look what I made it do!

But I want to get back to that, because it was fun and I miss it.

Agree with some of the comments, BUT come on guys this forum is the BEST robot forum i’ve ever been a privilege to be on.

It’s given me inspiration and drive to continue through some dark times over the last couple of years!

Yes its been a bit quiet lately, but for the 3.5 yrs i’ve been on it, I still enjoy reading folks postings, and viewing there projects!

I bang my head against the wall daily on how to make diy a viable business model. The diy global community is shrinking daily, and that's the result of a market saturated with products that all do the same thing - complicated arduino or impossible ros controllers that aren't plugin'play and don't have supporting software - which pisses people off to use. Ezrobot may be different by providing a unified solution, but we're a needle in the haystack when it comes to finding us for diy users. Yearly diy revenue for ezrobot has dissipated from over a million dollars to tens of thousands over the last few years. I continue to build diy robots and inventions and share them on the forum to help inspire and attract diy users - to no avail. New software features and responding to your diy software requests are something I never dismiss.

With shareholders, building rent, salaries and expensive inventory/manufacturing to maintain, the company turns toward revenue, like a moth to light. This doesn't reflect my personal interest, as I'm obviously a fan of diy as well - which is the only reason the forum still exists.

Make magazine is shrinking and their event attendance is waaaaay down. Most diy companies are at less than half staff, some are verge of closing their doors. It's a diluted market out there with a bunch of jaded diy users who got their butt kicked trying to learn arduino c++ and didn't know about ezrobot.

I haven't given up on diy. Trust me - I'm constantly exploring strategies to revive diy globally... but I'm only one man

The community forum began attracting more new users asking new user questions as our customer base grew - which annoyed many of you. Correcting cardboard hacker's response of "helping for free", I had an ezcredit system implemented to reward for your involvement in assisting to grow the community by answering questions of new users.

ezrobot no longer directs new users to the forum as much.

New diy users will only stick around if their questions are answers and if they're welcomed to the forum. Mostly that's not always the case, and new users don't feel welcomed to the forum. This is your forum, not mine. It's a collection of your combined personalities in typed responses that live in here forever. It's your responses that show in search results and the first thing new users see when they arrive.

So, what's the solution? I don't think there is a solution because I don't think there's a problem. The forum is what the forum has become...The result of any action is the effect - and the effect of the forum being slow is a result of how new users are welcomed. Did you know that you can view post discussion history in your user profile? Take a look at the questions you came into the forum with. It's an acceptable process of growth to learn to walk before you can run - this applies to everyone.

Also, I don't mind new user questions. It helps me evolve the product and better understand the hurdles of onboarding someone to becoming a robot expert like yourselves. The world ain't gonna change itself

Have you considered branching a new forum for advanced users? It can be a new place where experienced users can discuss amongst your skill level?

I think we all have come to the point where JD walking and dancing and other cool stuff he could do no longer satisfies us. Project we built get completed and are interesting to work with, then get old. The EZ Robot products makes it easy with consistent results to build anything. The InMoov guys realize it and change over.

Many members have gotten into a rut because they they know their ideas can become real but how many walking talking robots can you make. It's the new ideas and development which need to come back. The robots in the news can be built and surpassed by many members of this forum. The desire hopefully will return.

I just want to state without trying to sound to much like a boot licker that I've alway been thankful to DJ for development of the EZ platform. I really understand that it's based on DIY and he's done everything possible to keep the interest in DIY. I have no complaints in the way that side of the business has been handled and fully understand why. I think having experienced members help newer ones and offer a monetary reward was brilliant.

DJ's correct, there really isn't a problem. This is more a cultural thing. Weather we like it or not it's quickly becoming fact that most younger users today want everything already working with little risk of failure when effort is placed into something. DIY is full of risk and lots of effort with no promise of reward or good feeling. eyeroll