Hello Community,
My JetBot is happily chasing cats around the house. It tends to fall over sometimes on uneven surfaces or if it bumps into things it does’t recognize as “blocked”. What are your thoughts about lowering the center of gravity? The battery is low, but the Nano is high and heavy. Could shorter hex standoffs work? TIA.
Hi Dennis,
Shorter standoffs could absolutely help here so long as you’re not affecting connections to the motor driver. You could also rework the connector for that to add something like a [right-angle header so you can use even shorter standoffs. The tough part with that is finding something that will work as we don’t have too many other options for standoffs. Probably the best option we have is to stack several of these [3/8" Metal Hex Standoffs that we sell 10-packs of.
I would avoid adding more weight to the bottom to act as a kind of ballast since that will affect how it performs and could strain the motors a bit too much. Other JetBot users here may have some other real-world-tested solutions for you as well. Maybe some larger wheels that will give the bot a wider stance would help. You can take a look at our [Robotic Wheels Category if you’d like.](Wheels - SparkFun Electronics)](Standoff - Metal Hex (4-40; 3/8"; 10 pack) - PRT-10463 - SparkFun Electronics)](Break Away Male Headers - Right Angle - PRT-00553 - SparkFun Electronics)
Thanks TS-Mark. I’m actually going to try flipping the Nano to below the mounting plate 
We’ll see…
That’s a great idea. My only concern is you might run into some heat sink issues with the battery so close to the heat sink on the Nano but that should be fine. I would just keep an eye on it after it’s running for a few minutes.
As a note, the engine that Nvidia built needs the camera at a specific height. For example, in the collision avoidance example to recognized that there is an obstruction. Otherwise, if the camera is too low, it will get too close to an object and have issues turning.
Update: We have a new kit https://www.sparkfun.com/products/16390. I believe the CG is a little lower… if there is a lot of interest in (just) the chassis, I can try to persuade the catalog team into adding an new part for it.