Wedge on front of robot

[matthewdenny]

Our rookie team finished building the kitbot, and getting it wired and moving this week. After 15-20 minutes of jut driving it around in the hallway we decided to try to take it over a defence that we had built (Ramparts). The front of the robot slammed into the side.

After taking a closer look, it appears that the robot was about 1/8-1/4 to short to get the clearance needed to start over the obstacle. We are considering adding a wedge to the front of our robot to help lift us over barriers, or cutting a wedge from the underside of the kit frame, as seen in some testing videos here.

We saw success with a 4" tall, 4"deep (45* angle) wedge in a video, but aren't sure that we want/can go with something that size. Have any of you prototyped this, and what were your results?

For the record we are using 8" andymark rubber wheels. We are considering switching out the front pair for pneumatics tires as well. Our robot is back heavy, it that matters.