[KenWittlief]

theres no reason the arm cant go almost all the way to the floor - have a spot notched out for it, or have your frame a little shorter than 3 feet long, then it can hang over the end

remember at T=1 you can lift the arm up to get it off the floor - the bot only has to fit inside a 2.5 x 3 x 5 foot cube at the beginning.

I went back and cleaned up the sketch in the post above to show the arm being almost on the floor when fully retracted.