Botrose is run by a small group of builders who still solder their own boards and debug their own code. We are not a company selling kits; we are the people who answer your thread at midnight when your motor driver starts smoking.
Johannesburg
Started with a broken RC car and an ATmega8 in 2009. Now he spends weekends rebuilding chassis from scrap aluminium and testing motor drivers until they fail. He writes most of the beginner wiring guides and keeps the forum free of gatekeeping.
Pretoria
Embedded software engineer by day, Arduino tinkerer by night. Naledi maintains the code snippets section and reviews every PID example before it goes live. She is the reason your line follower finally stops oscillating.
Durban
Knows every electronics supplier in the country and which courier will actually deliver to your door. Sipho tracks import duties, counterfeit batches, and the best local sources for stepper motors and LiPo cells.
Cape Town
Runs two printers out of her garage and tests filament brands under local humidity. Anika posts the printable chassis files and writes practical notes on warping, layer adhesion, and what to do when it is 35 degrees outside.
Bloemfontein
Self-taught on battery management and not afraid to admit when a pack exploded on his test bench. Thabo writes the safety threads about LiPo storage, balancing, and choosing the right cell count for your project.
Soweto
Organises the local meetups and makes sure newcomers feel welcome. Lerato curates the build logs that get featured on the homepage and connects hobbyists who live close enough to share tools and spare parts.
Most robotics content online is either academic papers or polished product marketing. We wanted a space where a beginner in Kimberley can ask why their servo twitches and get an answer from someone who fixed the same issue last week. Every moderator has a real workbench, real failed prototypes, and a genuine interest in seeing your robot move.
Botrose Forum stays useful because of the people and shops who keep the hobby alive. These are the communities and local suppliers our members regularly recommend and collaborate with on builds and meetups.
These are the groups and outlets our members trust for parts, advice, and workshop space. If you run a local club or a supplier that serves hobby builders, reach out through the forum and we will add you to the list.
Botrose started as a small group of friends in Britzfontein who kept running into the same problems: which motor driver actually survives a beginner's wiring mistake, where to find a decent chassis kit without waiting a month, and how to keep a 3D-printed gearbox from warping in the summer heat. We began sharing notes in a simple thread, and the thread grew into a community.
Today the forum is organised the way a real workshop is. You'll find dedicated spaces for motor drivers, chassis design, microcontroller code, and battery management, plus a running conversation about local suppliers and import duties that matters more than any textbook. The tone stays practical: we explain things so a first-time builder can follow along, and we don't pretend academic theory is a substitute for soldering experience.
If you've got an Arduino on your desk and a half-finished line follower in a box, you're in the right place. We also host people who've moved past kits and are designing their own PCBs or experimenting with sensor fusion.
Plain language, shared build logs, and code snippets you can actually read. Nobody here scores points for jargon. If a term needs explaining, someone explains it, and the thread stays open for follow-up questions.
A handful of hobbyists comparing notes on motor drivers turned into a forum with project categories, local supplier threads, and a growing archive of workshop experience. The original goal never changed: help each other build better robots.
What started as a handful of hobbyists comparing notes on motor drivers and chassis builds slowly turned into a proper community. Here is the timeline of how the forum took shape, with the milestones that mattered along the way.
March 2021
A small group of makers started posting their line-follower experiments and Arduino sensor setups. The early threads were rough, but the troubleshooting notes were honest and useful.
August 2021
The forum got organised around concrete topics: motor drivers, chassis design, microcontroller code, and battery management. It became much easier for beginners to find the right thread without wading through unrelated posts.
February 2022
South African members started sharing where they actually buy parts, what import duties look like, and how humidity affects 3D-printed enclosures. These threads became some of the most visited on the forum.
October 2022
A small gathering in Britzfontein where members brought their latest builds, compared chassis designs, and spent an afternoon debugging each other's code. It proved the forum could work offline too.
June 2023
Long-time members started writing step-by-step guides for newcomers, covering everything from soldering basics to calibrating IR sensors. The tone stayed practical, rooted in real workshop experience rather than textbook theory.
Today
The forum now hosts build logs from all over the country, with members sharing everything from simple line followers to more ambitious sensor projects. The original spirit remains: practical help, honest troubleshooting, and a genuine love for building things that move.