| | 10 | In formal engineering, allow for safety margins in case your design behaves differently than you expected when you designed it. |
| | 11 | |
| | 12 | For example, if you choose a safety factor of 2 and you expect to lift a load of 200 lbs, then you design to lift 400 lbs, so that if your design is inefficient, or other issues pop up, you have some room to work with. |
| | 13 | |
| | 14 | ---- |
| | 15 | Reserves are allocations that are not allocated. (Right, useful...) They serve as backups and margins to give you breathing room later. If you want a 120 lb robot, design a 90 lb one. If You have 250 sq.in of horizontal space, allocate 200 sq.in. |
| | 16 | |
| | 17 | The key idea is to not use up all your technical resources at the initial designs. |
