ARS: When did you personally become connected with robotic field and why?
As a young boy I was fascinated with construction toys such as Erector sets and Legos. I spent many hours building motorized cranes and small robots. This fascination is obviously a built-in part of my character. My interests also included electronics and computers, and my initial career was focused in this direction. In 1987, after selling my computer accessory business, I began building an inexpensive industrial robot arm and out of that development came my stepper motor control systems and positioning tables which I continue to sell to this day. My small company grew slowly as capital allowed and the product line eventually included mobile robots and ultimately a book contract to write ' Robot Building for Dummies'.
ARS: Arrick Robotics is selling wide pallet of different automation and robot products. What are the most popular products of Arrick Robotics?
From a quantity standpoint, our ARobot mobile robot is our most popular robot. This market is still young and many hobbyists find it difficult to spend the money to purchase a real programmable robot such as ARobot. Nevertheless, the industrial positioning systems remain the foundation of my business.
ARS: One of the targeted area of Arrick Robotics is the hobbyist market. How do you see the role of hobbyist market in expanding the overall robotics market?
The hobby robotics market is completely different than the industrial automation market. You're dealing with different people with different goals. Hobbyists are interested in learning, building, and having fun with robots. Automation professionals are focused on solving a paticular problem in the workplace in a cost-effective way. Ultimately, many hobby robot builders will become part of the robotics industry, and for that, I am pleased to be a part.
ARS: You are the author of the "Robot building for dummies", how do you see the success of this book? Did this book made the growth of the Arobot sale?
The book was an interesting and sometimes difficult project for me.Normally I work at my own pace, juggling the responsibilities of my businesses and trying to find time to work on new ideas. The book publisher worked under different rules and I had to comply. In spite of that, I'm very happy with the results and many people are having fun building robots using the information in the book. Regularly I receive comments that make the whole process worth while. The book is focused around building, programming, and expanding ARobot and this has certainly lead to sales. I won't be retiring anytime soon but I do expect sales of ARobot to continue for quite some time.
ARS: What is your philosophy when designing a robot?
This would be like an architect resisting the tendency to spend too much time on pillar details. After this comes the tough part - simplifying the design and making it produceable. Reducing the number of parts and changing designs of individual parts so that ahuman and common tools can create them. I try to build prototypes as soon as possible since there are some problems you can't see on a computer screen. There are usually two or three iterations of prototypes before I feel like the design is ready for production.
ARS: Who are your major customers? I.E. which profile do they have?
For mobile robots such as ARobot, my customers are mostly hobbyists and schools. For my industrial automation products, my customers are mostly small factories or laboratories that are looking to automation a task that is repetitive and consumes their staff.
ARS: The personal and service robotics market is often compared to the nascent personal computer market of the late 70s. Do you think that is a fair comparison? What are the similarities and differences?
Yes, I've been saying this for almost 2 decades. Having been a computer hobbyist in the 70's, I do see many similarities, but there are many large differences that are preventing robots from following the acceptance curve that personal computers possesed.
The main difference is the shear quantity of technology involved in a robotic system. Robots include computers, power electronics, batteries, mechanics, sensors, and exotic programming. This causes a unique integration problem that makes robots difficult to design, produce, and afford.
Another issue is cost vs results. Computers quickly solved accounting problems and justified their costs. Robots, for the home user anyway, have yet to fill a need in a cost-effective way. Industrial applications are another issue entirely and they have shown adequate return-on-investment for years.
Currently we are seeing a transistion where larger companies are trying to make robots affordable for home tasks but this is proving very difficult. The current array small vacuums and lawn mowers are only the beginning. Sadly, they tend to be tempermental and are perceived as underperforming by the typical homeowner. Part of this perception of underperformance is driven by the movies and TV shows which depict robots performing tasks at human levels. The current state of robotics is very far from this realization and buyers will have to settle for less sensational devices.
ARS: How large do you think the personal and service robotics market will become? Can you comment the growth of the market?
I don't spend much time studying the global market for robotics, but I do expect rapid increases of both personal and service robot use in our societies over the next decade. First, you'll see more robots washing windows on high-rise buildings, polishing floors at schools, and helping with law-enforcement. Then you'll gradually start seeing them being used by individuals to mow yards, guard the home and do other household tasks. At some point, robots may become as commonplace as personal computers.
ARS: What do you think is going to be the "sweet spot" of the overall robotics market for Arrick Robotics - the hobbyist market, the personal robotics market, which is made up of entertainment robots, lawnmowers, vacuum cleaners and the like, the service robotics market, by which I mean robots like industrial window washers, military robots, search and rescue robots and so on, or industrial automation market?
Industrial robots will probably always be the leader because they have the ability to do the most work in the most effecient way. This is true of todays computers where most of us use a computer to browse the web and balance our checkbooks, but large computers used at businesses are crunching numbers 24 hours a day.
Eventually home and service robots will outnumber industrial robots by a large margin, but industrial robots will always be there behind the scenes building our automobiles and dish washers.
ARS: How many employees do you have, and do you plan to expand your company?
Expansion is always in the works but it must be tempered by financial realities. I like to build robots, that's for sure, but the overriding goal is to make a living. My company remains small at less than 10 employees mainly due to my dislike of debt. In the future I may entertain the idea of taking on an investor and change my growth path. In the meantime, I'll be introducing new products as time and money permits.
ARS: What other things can we expect from Arrick Robotics in the future? Do you plan to put some new robots on the market?
There are plans to expand both the industrial automation and mobile robotics product lines. The guiding principal will continue to be to make these products as useful and cost-effective as possible. I might also write another book or publish articles to spread my enthusiasm about robots.
Founder of Arrick Robotics, Tyler, TX, USA,
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Published in: Volume 1, Number 4, December 2004
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