My robots always park on blocks

[jisa]

When I develop my robots, be it hardware or software, I never let wheels touch the ground (or table or whatever).

Why is it important?

• Dangling wires, such as power cable, Ethernet or loosely connected sensors don't like being pulled.
• Expensive equipment around (laptop, monitors, chargers) does not like being run over.
• My hands do not like fighting with a powerful moving object in a vain attempt to stop it. [ Emergency STOP #4, by the way]
• Robots do not enjoy hitting walls or falling off table either.
• Soft tires get weirdly shaped if the robot stands on them for a long time.

How do I do it?

• Most robots fit on some sort of a cardboard box (shoe box or similar). When I had a bigger robot, I devoted time to building a wooden construction to support the robot with wheels in the air. It paid off. Imagine a robot with 60 km/h speed limit (1:5 RC car) going crazy ...
• When at home, working on the robot, I always park it on that box. The only exception is when I want to test movement on the ground, but that is a very controlled process. I disconnect cables, remove objects from around the robot and only after that I let it go.