Ground Clearance Vex clamping gearbox

[steelerborn]

So we attended the SCRRF Scrimmage on Saturday, and we found out while we were there that we needed to raise our frame by at least an inch.

Originally we wanted to keep a low cg with a low ground clearance in order to lift stacks with no fear of tipping. Driving over the scoring zones was not something we wanted to pursue. In our first match driving on the field for the first time we clipped the corner of a scoring zone and damaged the hardboard (not hdpe which the actual field would have). Talking to the field crew and inspectors they mentioned that if they saw a bot with very little ground clearance, changes would need to be made since they will not pass inspection.
Originally it didn't seem like they wanted us to continue to practice until we fixed it, but at the time we did not have the correct tools to fix the problem at the event. Thankfully the staff was understanding and allowed us to continue to practice and even gave us some great ideas as to how to fix it. Unfortunately being so close to bag and tag we could not pursue the other options.

We did however come up with a great solution. We are running the vexpro clamping gearbox so all we had to do was cut some 3"x1" tubing in 2" sections. We then attached the gearbox and drilled the necessary holes and bolted it to the frame. It raised our entire robot by 3 inches. Thankfully our intake system still works at the new height, only slight changes needed to be made to the elevator, and we are now able to drive over the scoring zones even with 4 inch mecanum wheels. All of the changes were able to be done in about 3-4 hours.

The main incentive for this post is to let everyone know about the ground clearance issue and passing inspection, and also to propose a solution for teams that are using the vex pro clamping gearbox.

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=CEBED2B660E90E05!14018&authkey=!ADkXvK zqNzDq-fU&v=3&ithint=photo%2cjpg