Proposal: Robotics
We already have Electronics and Robotics
Personally, I dislike that the electronics site also has "robots" in its name.
While the two are related due to the fact that robotics more often than not requires electronics, and while some robotic activity is supported on electronics, it's quite obvious that the community thriving there are only using robotics as an extension of their electronics work.
This site would be discussing robotics first and foremost, and would attract a much different community than electronics and robotics.
I elaborate a little more in this discussion:
Please support this proposal as a means to split robotics from the Electronics site
Based on the feedback here and on the site formerly known as "Electronics and Robotics" regarding robotics being out of scope for that site and deserving of its own site, that site has been renamed to "Electronics".
Sorry to say that having a single venue for both Electronics and Robotics really denotes a misunderstanding of what robotics is all about. Of course, robotics involves a lot of electronics development, and electronics is the basis for most robot hardware development. But the most challenging part (and the most active research thrust) is really about control, distributed control, artificial intelligence, vision, modeling, etc. We need a forum dedicated to that.
In research-level robotics, problem areas like planning and computer vision are livelier than hardware areas.
I think that an expert-friendly research-level AI proposal would make a better home for this. Of course we don't have that.
Hi Robert,
The robotics proposal would be more of scientific nature but on Electronics and Robotics, I could only see questions like how to select a microcontroller, etc. This could be more concerned with research oriented stuff. I have just started sending it out to my other researcher friends out there. Just wait and let's see if it gets votes. Thanks..
We've had this discussion before here, here, and here. It's also been discussed extensively on a few Area51 proposals and SE1.0 sites that have gone missing, but you'll have to trust me on that :) Perhaps someone can pull the database for the deleted Robotics proposals?
Robotics covers areas of mechanical engineering, AI, and a number of other topics which are poorly represented on the E&R site. We've allowed Lego NXT robotics to join the community, but there haven't been a lot of questions on that topic recently.
E&R has turned out to be a site about embedded systems. We have no robotics community, in spite of the three (now 4) proposals for a robotics community. We welcome robotics (it's in our name, for crying out loud!) but our current core users are embedded systems guys. It seems that we're a robotics site in name only. (But not in the URL! How convenient!)
BTW, I've posted a question about this proposal on the E&R meta here.
I work with a lot of pneumatic actuators and control them using electronics. If I had a question about pneumatics, without asking for help on the electronics side, would that not be an acceptable E&R question?
The purpose behind posting a question as an "answer" to this "question" is to illustrate that other fields (fluid dynamics, etc.) are part of robotics and probably why some people would like to separate it from E&R. However, I do not support the separation, and view this as something that is closely enough related that people should use the tags and filter as they deem appropriate.
I feel that if enough robotics-only questions appear later in the life of the E&R site, then separation should be considered. Why separate them now, when it is at such an early stage?
Robotics is fundamentally 3 fields of knowledge. Electronics, Software and Mechanics. I don’t mean any disrespect anybody BUT grouping robotics under electronics is totality ignorant on the nature of what makes a robot.
I know many ppl that are experts in one of these fields, some that are expert in 2 and very few that are expert in all 3. Having a community of ppl that respect the others expertise will greatly advance the filed. If the servo expert and the circuit designer can get together whit the AI…. Now you’re in business.