Low Bar

[Joe Johnson]

Originally Posted by Billfred

We built for 15 7/8", and we were just scraping; 15 1/2" probably would've done it for that robot. Your mileage may vary based on wheel placement and angle of attack. (I drove the robot for the reveal video, and I had better luck coming in at a slight angle than straight on.)

The shape that you need to be able to get under to limbo is surprisingly complicated. If you are not using CAD or some sort of to scale drawings, you are going to be one of those teams I discussed above, that THOUGHT they would go under the bar but don't in the end.

First of all you have to ask if you need to go under the bar in FWD and REV and from which side. The envelope changes significantly if you face your robot toward the opponent's tower or toward your own because (thanks FIRST) the bar is not in the middle of the outer works.

A lot depends on your wheel base and wheel diameters and such but (SPOILERS) there is a V out in front of (and behind of) your robot that is not even close to 14 inches from the "ground plane" (i.e. the plane that your robot drives on if it were a flat floor). I don't have the CAD pulled up but I think for our particular chassis parameters, the base of the V shaped "keep out zones" comes close to the top of our bumper.

SO... really if you have some boulder collector device you plan on folding out in front of your robot while it's doing the limbo, you really really really need to be sure that you can limbo in the real world not just in your minds.

Word to the wise.

Dr. Joe J.

P.S. Getting your boulder mechanism hooked on the limbo bar counts as a Tortuga. I'm just saying...