Radio Shack had all the best geek stuff for people so geeky even other geeks thought they were dorks. Some think Radio Shack failed because they were too geeky but I think they failed because they were not geeky enough.
Radio Shack should have got in a stock of all sorts of components for building robots, drones, etc. Think of putting together a robot as putting together a modular stereo system ... wire the bits and presto it's a robot.
For your component robots, you need the easy, medium, and difficult kits so you have enough variety to attract sophisticated builders or novices. There should be all sorts of accessories as well so the builder can customize the robot to do whatever demented things he or she wants.
For synthesizers, there is MIDI language which is the machine language the synthesizers use to talk electronically with each other. Similarly, if there is not a RIDI language for robots that functions analogously to MIDI, then someone needs to get cracking writing one.
So why should anyone do this.
Gamers, dear Watson. Gamers.
What you want is the Battlebot Headquarters and you sell all the parts for building them but your customers won't need an Electrical Engineering degree to build them. For example, World of Tanks is big in the gamer world so how about some robot tank kits so they can fight it out in a field somewhere.
The Raspberry Pi computer is part of this as that's a whole lot of computing horsepower on a single small card and that's plenty to give intelligence to at least components of your robot. If you want to do AI then you'll need some serious compute power but how much mind does it take for robots to pound the hell out of each other.
Right now drones mostly take pictures through bedroom windows of apartment buildings but a bit of imagination could bring a whole lot of coolness to what people do with them.
Japanese have been doing this for a while in building robot sex dolls but so far the best they accomplished was Kim Kardashian.
(Ed: Kim Kardashian is a robot?)
What? You seriously thought she wasn't?
Somebody build one of these stores. Even if nothing else, it would be one hell of a lot more fun than running a donut shop.
Radio Shack should have got in a stock of all sorts of components for building robots, drones, etc. Think of putting together a robot as putting together a modular stereo system ... wire the bits and presto it's a robot.
For your component robots, you need the easy, medium, and difficult kits so you have enough variety to attract sophisticated builders or novices. There should be all sorts of accessories as well so the builder can customize the robot to do whatever demented things he or she wants.
For synthesizers, there is MIDI language which is the machine language the synthesizers use to talk electronically with each other. Similarly, if there is not a RIDI language for robots that functions analogously to MIDI, then someone needs to get cracking writing one.
So why should anyone do this.
Gamers, dear Watson. Gamers.
What you want is the Battlebot Headquarters and you sell all the parts for building them but your customers won't need an Electrical Engineering degree to build them. For example, World of Tanks is big in the gamer world so how about some robot tank kits so they can fight it out in a field somewhere.
The Raspberry Pi computer is part of this as that's a whole lot of computing horsepower on a single small card and that's plenty to give intelligence to at least components of your robot. If you want to do AI then you'll need some serious compute power but how much mind does it take for robots to pound the hell out of each other.
Right now drones mostly take pictures through bedroom windows of apartment buildings but a bit of imagination could bring a whole lot of coolness to what people do with them.
Japanese have been doing this for a while in building robot sex dolls but so far the best they accomplished was Kim Kardashian.
(Ed: Kim Kardashian is a robot?)
What? You seriously thought she wasn't?
Somebody build one of these stores. Even if nothing else, it would be one hell of a lot more fun than running a donut shop.
5 comments:
Alan, my blog post on Tuesday talks about why Radio Shack failed. Their demise started when the quality of their products declined rapidly in the '80s. Their fate was sealed when they were unable to adapt to the online shopping world. Think of them as an electronics version of Borders.
http://thegrapesvine.blogspot.com/2015/02/end-of-era-for-one-time-electronics.html
I don't see Radio Shack working well in an online world as shipping would murder them. Paying five bucks to deliver some geeky thing that's worth fifty cents doesn't work.
Their own line of audio equipment was never any good and they started bringing in Apple, Samsung, etc. In my view that was their death sentence as then they compete with Wal-Mart and no-one can do that.
I'm not being facetious about these robot stores and I'd be surprised if someone is not doing it already. That's where I think Radio Shack really missed it.
Closest I can find with a cursory online search is Jameco Electronics. It looks like an paradise for those electronically inclined, complete with unprinted circuit boards if you truly want the full DIY experience. Shipping, as you say, is the killer, though. I just don't know if there's enough demand in local markets to support brick and mortar.
Branching into the same items sold by Wal*Mart, Target, and Best Buy was definitely a foolish move. They weren't going to compete with them, so it was all inventory overhead with no chance of gaining market share. Bad management decisions will kill any company.
If there's only hard-core DIY then my initial premise stands. Seems like a great opportunity for Robots-R-Us with modular bits for building your latest demented project and without an E.E. degree.
The RIDI language is crucial but it's a simple thing as MIDI is not a compiler language so much as a data construct. Geez, I even remember the words the big kids use. It really just generates tons of control blocks. There is no language per se.
MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface so what you need is maybe the RADI for the Robot Appendage Digital Interface.
MIDI is what blew the world out of synthesizers. Before MIDI there was Walter Carlos, later Wendy Carlos, and it was music for SGO (Super Geniuses Only).
When MIDI got into it, suddenly every synth could talk to every other synth and through a simple, standardized protocol. Suddenly anyone with anywhere close to ten working digits could be an SGO synth wizard.
I suspect the same potential exists with robotics.
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