Back in the stone-ages of 1998 William Cox, the founder of GoRobotics.net, became interested in amateur robotics. The next six months were filled with frustration as it became apparent to him that info pertaining to amateur robotics just didn’t exist on the internet or in local bookstores. Little did he know that at the time, amateur robotics bore a striking resemblance to the black market: you couldn’t get any information about it unless you were diligent. He continued to strive for information, and finally hit a breakthrough with the discovery of the robotics book: Mobile Robots. Events followed and he was sucked into the huge underground world of robotics. There was no turning back!

In a moment of utter desperation (and he realizes now, utter genius) he said “forget this! I’ll start a website.” And Robot Central (latter GoRobotics.net) was born. Development began in the summer of 1999 and Robot Central first opened it’s e-doors to the public in October of ’99.

Times sure have changed since the good ‘ole days of robot-central.webjump.com! In February of 2000 Robot Central acquired the domain name robotshop.com/gorobotics and officially changed its name to GoRobotics.net. During this time GoRobotics.net underwent its first redesign. In the ensuing months GoRobotics.net continued to expand its repertoire of robotics projects, resources, books, and links. In 2005, William switched GR.N to a blog format, and moved the site to running on Joomla (a mistake, in retrospect). Another major redesign happened in the summer of 2008, where the site was migrated from Joomla to WordPress to run the site.

William had been fortunate to see the release of many great new books and other resources for the robotics beginner, but he is happy to say that GoRobotics.net was one of the first. Other sites have tried to fill this niche but GoRobotics.net’ visits continue to grow at an amazing rate as more and more people are bitten by the “robotics bug”. We hope to continue to grow and expand the resources here to meet the growing demand in this new millennium! Keep those ‘bots coming!

In July of 2010, RobotShop Distribution inc. (www.robotshop.com) acquired Gorobotics.net, and intend to maintain the legacy and mission. RobotShop would like to thank William for everything he has done for the  community over the past 10+ years.

Not So Frequently Asked Questions

Where’d the name come from?

Robot Central was the original name, but the domain name was taken so William Cox, founding father of GoRobotics.net, had to come up with a different one. William is glad he did because he believed the name “Robot Central” was pretty stupid. He started asking all his friends and family and finally the name ‘gorobotics’ was thrown out among others. The domain name was available and it was short so he got it. There is some debate though on who came up with it. William’s brother Samuel claims it was his idea while his other brother Dan says it was his … we may never know …

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