Bespoke Robot Society:Give Them Away For Free
Give Them Away for Free
This is BRS rant number five, about the power of open source and why giving robots away creates more value than selling them.
The Model
I don't know that the robots can literally be given away for free. My plan for SimpleBot is actually to sell it for a price that includes enough profit in the sale price to purchase one additional robot and donate it to a school or kids' group.
Like, the $30 price tag might include a whole second robot's components for charity. One person pays for a robot, another group gets a free robot.
What Is Free?
This is part of the power of open source. There's zero licensing cost to each robot. The blueprints, the code, the designs—everything is just on the internet.
I am giving away the robot for free if you define the robot to be all the information you need to make one.
Now, that doesn't include the physical parts like microcontrollers. If you've got a 3D printer, I can't give you your own filament. But the idea is that the robot itself is just something that if you were able to get hold of the parts to make it, then you can have it. That's as simple as it gets.
This philosophy connects with the tech tree concept—at any level of the tree, from pre-assembled kit to custom build, the knowledge is free.
Zero Licensing Cost
I really don't think that robots should be gatekept. I really don't want to see any licensing costs—not just for the use of the robot, but for the tools to make it.
I don't want to rely on a student or hobbyist license. I don't want a one-year trial. I want to make this robot out of tools that are free for everyone, everywhere, for all time, under all situations.
That means if you have no resources except the library computer, you have the same capabilities that I have to extend and learn from the robot.
Free Tools Only
Every part of the robot's design should be made with free tools:
- CAD: FreeCAD (not Fusion 360)
- PCB design: KiCad (not Eagle)
- Software: Works on any platform
- Operating system: Linux-based workflow
I'm going to design and make all these robots from Linux, so that somebody who does not have a Windows computer—if you're stuck on Windows 7 or Windows 10 and Microsoft just gives you hell for trying to operate your old computer on the internet these days—just go to Linux. It's still going to be able to do every single task of this robotic design workflow.
The Feedback Loop
I'm hoping that I can prove this point, but my theory is that if you give, you actually get more back in return.
Here's the feedback loop:
- I'm going to give away these robots
- I'm going to put the designs out for free
- I'm going to mail them to people that ask for them
- I'm going to send them to testers and say "Hey, how many kids do you have?" and give them that many robot boxes
Everyone is going to send back:
- Feedback
- Complaints
- Ideas
- Photos of what they did with it
If I find the right people to receive them, they're also going to send back:
- Patches
- Pull requests
- Different software that can go on the wiki as more examples
Everything that these people give back, they are repaying me for the free robot I've given them, and they are giving it to everybody else that has received a free robot.
My free robots I give away are getting more valuable and more feature-rich the more free robots I give away.
Real-world testing, like toddler testing, comes from this model—people actually using the robots and reporting back what works and what breaks.
Why Free Is Better
As a BRS member, you can just hand out:
- CAD files
- 3D printer files
- Circuit diagrams
- Schematics
- The link to the wiki
- Kits and guides
Anything that allows you to learn how to robot, build your robot, operate the robot—the knowledge, at least, is completely free.
Why is free better than expensive? Seems almost like a silly question, but we need to acknowledge that a high-price robot kit is really common. The cost itself is a limitation which reduces who can participate in the innovation cycle.
When you give away robots for free, you get more helpers. A free robot, by definition, just has more people that could help with the project than a hundred-dollar kit or something behind a paywall or a paid class requirement. All that stuff restricts the group of collaborators you can have.
I need collaborators to succeed, so I'm going to make everything I can absolutely free. You can make it free too. You can make whatever you want free.
What I'm hoping you'll see is: you as a robot builder are benefiting from the free robot that I'm giving you. If you add anything to it, I want you to make that free as well. I can't force you—I think you could always keep it secret—but I'm hoping you will also make it public and make it cost zero dollars for everyone else.
That's the idea. See also why BRS focuses on useful, educational robots rather than expensive competition machines.