Hi all,
I am currently writing my diploma thesis about Arduino. At the moment I am struggling with the requirements analysis. I was wondering if there are some official statistics available on the board itself and the community. Especially sales volumes of the boards and the size of the community or users.
So far I only got the number of registered users of this forum, which is ok, but not a scientific figure I could quote in my work.
Thanks for any information,
rob
The number of different clone boards have exploded over the last couple of years, i guess that it would be ery difficult to gather stats. for the "non official" boards.
Massimo, David or Mellis could probably help you with some numberss for the "official boards"
Please keep us posted with your work.
EDIT:
And maybe the can help me with a spellchecker 
Sounds like an interesting thesis subject. There is something special going on here and it's growing leaps and bounds around the Arduino platform. The fact that it is based on open source software and hardware makes it somewhat unique.
Also the fact that the platform is useful for raw beginners in programming and electronics all the way to professional embedded engineers makes it unique I think. The entry costs can be very low, but still hard to out grow the capabilities and applications one can handle with this platform.
There are now 3rd party vendors in all continents manufacturing processor boards and/or accessory shield boards that support this platform.
Now how to get a handle on user population and number of processor boards sold? That's kind of hard to get I would think. The member population of this forum is one metric, but don't know how inclusive it would be. There are so many manufactures now that I'm sure getting them all to give you units shipped to date would be difficult, but maybe worth some e-mails. A quick look on E-bay using Arduino as a search word will show a growing number of listings over time. Of course goggle can give you a count of site hits using a Arduino search word.
I don't know, it's your thesis, so I guess you have all the hard stuff to figure out. I do know that it's a very interesting dynamic going on around the Arduino community and I think it has legs. 
Lefty
Thanks for your replies,
that's kind of what I thought. Well thats OpenSource, free and out of control
I will follow the suggestion and write some emails to the manufacturers, thanks for that.
There is a list of Arduino-compatible boards here:
with some comparison and links.
Well thats OpenSource, free and out of control
When control gets in the way, it should be abandoned. Nature works "out-of-control", too. Except that only the fittest survive, in the long run.
I don't see the lack of control as a bad thing, at all.
I don't see the lack of control as a bad thing, at all.
I agree with you. Didn't say it was a bad thing.
I don't see the lack of control as a bad thing, at all
Glad to see you weren't affected by lack of controls on the banking "industry".
Glad to see you weren't affected by lack of controls on the banking "industry".
Well, that's not open source, is it?
Nice concept though.
Open source money.
On second thought, probably not
Or did you mean controlling money in an open source way?
developer; Is there a user-base for rip-off mortgages?
user-base; NO!
developer; hmm. Maybe not a good idea.
Jeroen
So far I only got the number of registered users of this forum, which is ok, but not a scientific figure I could quote in my work.
Speaking as an ex academic I would have thought that it was a scientific figure and would be very quotable in your paper.
It illustrates the number of people feeling they have something to say about the Arduino, eather asking or answering. It is not as if there are other rival forums of any size to dilute or provide duplicate numbers.
There's lots of statistics to be gathered from the forum, though I don't know how much is specific to the nature of Arduino vs just the nature of forums in general...
Even with no access to statistics you can always do a Fermi estimation.
I like this graph comparing Google searches for "Arduino" with "Basic stamp": http://www.google.com/trends?q=arduino%2C+"basic+stamp"&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0
Andrew
I like this graph comparing Google searches for "Arduino" with "Basic stamp": http://www.google.com/trends?q=arduino%2C+"basic+stamp"&ctab=0&geo=all&date=...
Thanks Andrew,
just got back from the holidays and saw your post. Didn't know that Google is tracking every search term ... do we have to worry ... big Google is watching us
Also thanks to retrolefty:
Now how to get a handle on user population and number of processor boards sold? That's kind of hard to get I would think. The member population of this forum is one metric, but don't know how inclusive it would be. There are so many manufactures now that I'm sure getting them all to give you units shipped to date would be difficult, but maybe worth some e-mails. A quick look on E-bay using Arduino as a search word will show a growing number of listings over time. Of course goggle can give you a count of site hits using a Arduino search word.
I've been writing to some distributors and manufacturers but unfortunately did not get a lot of positive response until now. Most treat their sales volumes as confidential and are not willing to share it, not even for academic use.