Margins Robots: Stability Margins, Slim Margins, Two Ply, In the Margins, Margin of Safety

The Margins robots use a overhead-ish spinning disk weapon, while trying to be as flat as possible.

Stability Margins


The first of it's kind. With every hit it deals on its opponent the recoils destroys its drive motors a little bit more. Center of gravity was too far away from its wheels. Frame was solid otherwise, and the weapon motor was resilient. Though spare drive motors it was able to get second place at Dragoncon 2013

Slim Margins


Fixed all the things that were wrong with Stability Margins. Survived nine rounds through the loser's bracket at Motorama 2014 and beat the eventual champion once to land second place. Still has a couple problems with structural toughness due to its thinness.

Two Ply


It was designed around an axial flux weapon motor for flatness. Didn't do so hot because it got really hot (from current draw because of inefficiency) and browned out the electronics. But it did spin and hit things, so that was pretty cool. It competed in Dragoncon 2014 and Combots Cup 2014.

In the Margins

Back to radial flux motors. I was tired of cracking motor magnets. So I purposely chose a shock absorbing material to spare the drive motors at the expense of hitting a little less hard. Survivability comes first. The result is In the Margins. It competed in Motorama 2015.

Margin of Safety version 1

Version 1
Margin of Safety was a compromise between the plastic deformation of the plastic around the weapon in In the Margins which caused it to lose, and keeping the drive motors isolated from shock. Thus, it has a metal weapon holder and a plastic frame. It also used brushless drive motors, which work okay. This version won Dragoncon 2015 and Combots Cup 2015.

Margin of Safety version 2

Version 2
The main features are a redesigned hub holder, slanted armor, and belt drive motors to fix center of gravity issues in the previous version. This robot won Motorama 2016 and did okay at Robogames 2016.

Margin of Safety version 3

Version 3
The main features are a yet redesigned hub holder, reverting back to brushed motors due to difficulty in low speed control of brushless motors, a new control board, and decoupling the side armor from the drive axles. The holes were due to underestimating the plate aluminum's thickness, resulting in required weight reduction. This robot won Sparkfun AVC 2016.