Low Rider Club 2014
 

On this year's robot, we had roughly 1/16" ground clearance.

Our ground clearance started just below 1/8", where the bottom of our lexan bellypan was. There were originally pan head bolts and rivets below the bellypan, but as the robot wore in (ie: was pounded in) we began to completely ruin the whole field of tape at Dallas (2 times) as our tubing frame slightly shifted. We moved all of the bolts and busted out the Dremel to ground down some bolt "tails" so the lowest point of the robot was the bellypan itself, which had sunk down to 1/16".

After 2 regionals, we have huge scratch marks (like sandpaper) all along our plastic bellypan where we were still slightly sliding around.

Ground clearance is defined in this club as the height of your bellypan (or similar large, horizontal plate) off of the ground. How low are you?

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

When we're on our omni-wheels our belly pan is just under a 1/4" from the ground. We have bolts and the 72 tooth gears that come close enough to the ground to collect any loose bits of carpet. We collected a lot of carpet this year. Our pretty white frame isn't so pretty on the inside anymore.

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

The bolt heads out the bottom of our frame are just a smidge over 0.25" from the ground. We didn't go lower because we didn't want any issues with running over loose nuts/bolts on the field.

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

We have about 3/4 of an inch of clearances, at one point we ripped up a piece of loose tape and it cost us a bearing and a belt!

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

At the lowest point, our bellypan is .4375 inches from the ground. The completely flat field let us switch to 4" wheels while still using the 3" drive tubes we are used to. We did not experience any scraping this year.

In the past we've had CIMs as close as 3/8-1/4" from the ground. These CIMs had scrapes on them as well as a collection of metal shavings presumably grabbed off the ground.

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

You sir have an amazing drive base if your belly pan can hold a half a thousands tolerance!!!!!!

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

It's probably more like .435 factoring in that the plate is probably .063" thick rather than exactly 1/16th. Also forgot to factor in powdercoat, which adds at least 2 thou.

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

Now we just need the field and the field TAPE to live up to these numbers!

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

537 had 1/2" inch ground clearance with our belly pan this year. In our videos from competitions, you can see our belly pan sticking out below the bumpers, but you can't (easily) see the wheels, so it kind of looks like our robot is hovering 1/2" off the ground. :D

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

Geez, makes us feel positively sky high with ~3/4" clearance.

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

Add us to the 1/16" low rider club...

Our cross braces and electronics mounting rails are welded under our frame, so everything sits nested inside the frame.

It only became a concern when we had a code issue in auto. Our first practice match of the season we ran into the wall in our torque gear and in those 10 seconds we burned through the carpet and toasted a brand new set of Vex 4" Versa wheels.

In fact, that practice match in teleop we were unable to move since in the time between auto and teleop the carpet and what was left of the tire material cooled and we were GLUED in place. The field techs were so happy with us!! Took a good 10 minutes to pry the robot from the field. :ahh:

Of course the practice matches were held on the game field and every time we set up our robot throughout the event we could not help but smile. We were concerned that we would trip breakers with our 6 CIM drive. After the wall burnout we felt that was no longer an issue. Plus seeing your "patch" when you went to set up you robot, priceless.... :D

Luckly we had a bunch of spares. This is our first time using a west coast drive and wasn't sure of how badly they could wear tires out during defense.

We have upgraded to Colsons for the championships.. Hope they wear better.

Aloha!

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

Pictures?

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

I will check with the students.

The field crew was not amused so they might not of gotten one. We were kind of busy pealing the robot off the floor.

I will check to see if the worn tires are not in the crate. If they are not I will post a picture of them tonight after our meeting. I was amazed.. We put them on our intake for the rest of practice as a badge of honor. Sadly they did effect the pick up and we replaced them before the qualifications.

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

When we lost one our wheels we were 1/4 off the ground on that side. (running eliminations like that) other wise we were 1/2-3/4 off the ground. We some how still got lots of carpet in out bevel gears 6 inches off the ground still not sure how that happens.

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

Our practice bot was at 1/2", and we lowered the comp bot once we tried driving over uneven carpet tape and found that it could keep going. 1/4".

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

We didn't suppose to have such a low robot, but for some time there was the head of a bolt scratching the ground, so we had to change the side of a spring washer so it didn't happen, that would make our robot 1mm away from the ground, or 0.0393701 inches.

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

Our robot scrapes the ground when it rides on carpet, do we win?

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

I guess you can't get closer than that, there were a few parts of our robot scraping the ground, but we managed to fix those, so we're not so far away from you.

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

It would have been funny for you guys to play in our last qualification match at Dallas. Our mecanum wheels broke, and I bet a roller would have high-centered you guys :D

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

Our robots belly pan was on the ground in the center during most of our matches and the bolts holding it one he front and bag dragged along the ground. We called it an "traction device" and not a cad error. At one point, some tape had overlapped on the field wand the carpet was a tad pulled up and I got the robot stuck on it for a bit.

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

Our gear covers are at best 1/8'' off the ground. :yikes:

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

We ran 3" diam, 1.5" wide Colson wheels (hence our low ground clearance) and replaced them for each regional, not because they wore, but because we swapped our whole drive-trains for unrelated reasons.

Anybody who saw us could attest that we were arguably the pushiest robot on the field, running 6CIM, 6w tank drive, with 2 speeds geared 5.5fps and 15.5 fps. We prided ourselves on bulldozing just about everybody down the field at both regionals.

The Colsons show some superficial wear on them. They felt a little softer after the regional than they were at the start, but they were neither (visual comparison) smaller than brand new wheels, nor did they push less hard.

Our team was extremely satisfied with the Colson wheel's performance, and we will definitely run them anytime we need traction in future games (who needs wheels in next year's water game :P)

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

We were in your club, but after our first match and some unfortunate skid marks in the carpet wherever we had travelled forced us to change out our 4-inch omnis for some 6-inch ones. That was a fun morning, let's not go in to it...

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

We barely clear the ground, any extra clearance is a higher cog.

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

Here is the wear after our autonomous burnout at the field wall.



By the time the auto ended and teleop started the tire material had cooled and adhered to the carpet..

No teleop for our first practice match and some grumpy field techs..

We have upgraded to colsons now. I would like to try it again and compare wear though I doubt we would be popular after that. :p

I doubt we could of drove much after burning off that much material. We only have 1/16" of clearance..

Still looking for picture of carpet damage..

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

857 is something like 1/2". Makes our 2013 bot look absolutely silly with about 3.5" clearance, with then several more inches up to our electrical board.

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

4301 had its belly pan dragging on the ground for an entire regional. When on a hard floor, there's barely enough clearance to slip a sheet of paper underneath.

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

Pretty much. We were in a similar situation with the heads of rivets on the bottom of our belly pan. We had to put packing tape over them to keep them from ripping up the gaffer's tape :yikes:

Re: Low Rider Club 2014
 

Some of you guys sure would have had a fun time at MAR CMP, the cement floor was so bad there were gaps where they couldn't get parts of the field to fit together right. Needless to say the carpet wasn't exactily flat and was the most torn up FRC carpet I have ever seen by the end of the day.