The Twitbotics Project

The Twitbotics Project aims to provide a website, forum, and eventually physical venues to facilitate independent advanced robotics research. We provide a variety of robotics information, including instructions to build a basic “Twitbot” – a robot that has a simple cURL interface to connect to social networking services (e.g. Twitter). Users then creatively modify (“hack”) the design to create a variety of competition robots. Early goals include: an online design submission area, an interactive online robot fighting game, and  a BattleBots-style venue for fighting robot competition with each robot announcing victory and all “brackets” tracked through Twitter. Later phases, capital permitting, may include a standard hardware or software interface allowing robots to actually be controlled through Twitter, most likely using Direct Messages to prevent anyone from controlling any robot. Some robots may be designed in a way that allows concurrent control, in which case @reply control may be an option.

Although humanoid design is a significant focus of the Twitbotics project, an increase in public awareness of advanced robotic technologies is necessary. The website itself will serve as a venue to promote increased robotics research in the United States, portray humanoids in the positive light of helper robots instead of destructive machines, and build a robotics-oriented social community. “Robotics 2.0″ features will allow users to vote on and review robot designs and concepts, collaboratively share ideas in multimedia “chatrooms”, produce and share robotic art, and even battle their 3D model robots using Flash right in their browser.

Monetization: Multiple profit opportunities exist in building a cutting-edge robotics community centered around social media. Advertising can be used effectively on informational pages (articles) and multimedia content (video, design slides, etc). The sales of robot parts, kits, books, and digital media (e.g. robotics telecourses, design software) will contribute to the bottom line. Robot software development, commercial robotics consulting, and hardware sales/licensing will bring in some revenue also. A “freemium” membership business model where users can pay for additional features a la carte or on a monthly basis is being considered. Eventually the primary profit generator will be the network of competition venues, with a large portion of profits generated through conference fees, licensing, product rights, and branded product sales.

Phase I

1. Provide a clean, graphically appealing website with information about the Twitbotics project, goals, and an administrative members area that allows project administrators to communicate and document internal matters and servers as a repository for business and legal documentation. Introduce the project, allow mailing list and/or members area sign-up, and provide extensive robotics information. Consider selling products through a well-crafted affiliate store as a small part of the site. Start with a single self-designed Twitbot to start the project, and draft various competitions (initial users/investors can vote on which competitions are selected).
2. Provide a site area or separate site where investors can view relevant business documents, proposals, and contact information.
3. Grow the Twitbotics user base to 1,000 members, with at least 50 active members and multiple submitted designs. Test marketing strategies and interact with initial “beta” user base to determine what users like and don’t like. Make adjustments as necessary.

Phase II

1. Web 2.0 features including design and document review and some basic collaboration features should be completed. Statistics and “experiment results” should be available, allowing the user to view a large amount of data (gathered from the robots, and Twitter) in a variety of ways. Focus on helping the community be more active, prepare infrastructure for scalability (significant reinvestment, possible venture capital here). Partner with various robotics competitions and events, offering discounts and incentives to our visitors.
2. Market Twitbotics and Robotics 2.0 – attend expos, tradeshows, conferences; contact important decision makers in the robotics and social media fields in order to create positive company affiliations; Ramp up web marketing with new budget; begin business and technical planning for venues, focusing on land acquisitions, building standards, and competition regulations (more venture capital)
3. Research and build out feasible rich multimedia features. Options include the ability for users to upload a 2D CAD or similar design document and automatically convert to a 3D model (watermarked/low quality, fee for high quality); Flash multimedia collaboration including chat, task/project management, and whiteboarding; and possibly the ability for users to compete with each other remotely;

Phase III

1. Build multiple physical venues of different sizes to accommodate different robotics competitions, robot hobby stores, and “hacker spaces” or areas where members can rent shared space to work on their projects. Stream competitions live on the Internet (with ads). Sell custom robot kits, robot designs, and licensing.
2. Partner with large universities, organizations, and investors to increase acceptance and awareness of humanoid technologies. Focus on developing more incentives for competition winners in order to encourage larger and more complex projects. Lobby for positive change, fund and promote environmentally conscious robotics projects, and engage users in a new and unique form of entertainment.

Tags: twitbot, Twitbotics