After 7 years of competing in VEX Robotics, both IQ and VRC/VR5C, and being part of a team this season that has been awarded Design at Worlds (twice in the last 4 years), Excellence and Innovate at Signature Events, and Triple Crowning 4 out of 5 local regional comps the time has come to release the last notebook I will help author as part of team 1469A.
While I could just drop this and leave, it was decided that it would be better to put some context around what our team/organization feels is a good way to put a notebook together and thus have developed the following site.
The above goes into details around what teams should consider when trying to understand the engineering notebook rubric that is used for judging when approaching their notebook. As part of this we have broken this down into two main components.
Understanding the Engineering Notebook Rubric ~ Breakdown of each of the 10 judged areas of the rubric
Parts/Sections of a Notebook ~ Typical Notebook Entries with examples
Hopefully teams will find this resource useful and can use it to assist in one’s notebook journey. If anyone would be willing to contribute additional examples of work that could be included we would more than welcome it.
If there are any questions or comments regarding this notebook or informational site, please feel free to reach out.
Thanks so much for this! Great resource to look through, and I will definitely be sharing with the middle school teams I mentor to help explain notebook.
Very impressed with the way you have condensed everything while still having an effective notebook!
Hi! This is so wonderful for someone who’s fairly new to doing a notebook (this is my second year with my team and I doing a notebook).
I do have a question regarding when you said, “Entry dates should reflect the day they were entered into the note, not necessarily the day they took place.”
I do have to ask how don’t you go back and add things if entries also mean sections (i.e. design brief). This may not be entries exactly, but adding in sections that you forgot. Of course, I can’t imagine creating a perfect notebook outline the first day that they start (and I’m sure your team doesn’t either), and I also can’t imagine just leaving out important information or sacrificing the proper order of the notebook to document it in the exact sequence that you documented it instead of documenting it in the proper flow.
Do you 1) just make a great outline the first time 2) document each section of the notebook as you write it (i.e. write about game analysis after the design brief because you overlooked game analysis the first time, thus sacrificing proper order that would be easier to read to document it in the exact order that you write it) or 3) not include the content.
This is all irrelevant, however, if you simply mean meeting/programming entries. I’m very sorry if this is confusing. I am not sure if I can truly explain it in a way that is not confusing.
I may be reading what you said wrong, but I would like your take on this. Thank you.
This is amazing, and i can see why you won so many awards. I just has one question about how you guys did it.
It seems like it was done on something like Google docs or Microsoft word, not slides or powerpoint. How did you manage the formatting of each page and what service did you use? Was it something like a large table on each page?
If you overlooked something at the beginning of the season, you can and 100% should add it to your notebook, but you should not go back through and fill in more information to previous entries. It is expected and encouraged that you learn and improve throughout the year. The judges want you to share that with them, so if you learn something that you wish you had been doing the whole time, start implementing it and talk about why you’re changing what you’re doing.
It takes time to learn how to make a good EN for Vex. You got this
Somewhere, but haven’t been able to find it and not sure how useful it would be.
All good questions and @BLRS has given some solid advice.
Some context around the Tip you quoted. In our organization our coach had a rule that we weren’t allowed to make changes to any entries that were made and to do our best to get an entry done on the day an activity was completed. If not then reference when it was done or during a specific period of time. This went back to the days of having a bound written notebook which was carried forward to our digital notebook. This made sense for us as we print and bind our digital notebook for each competition that required a physical notebook.
For a team/club meeting, other teams design review, or sometimes even the competition entry it can be fairly easy to write those up and enter them in the day they took place. I had a teammate a couple years ago that would do the competition write-up in the pits in between matches and finish it up on the drive home. This past season some of the writeups took place a day or two after the event as we would go back and rewatch our matches as a team.
For something focused around prototyping or programming, that entry might be held back and fully written up upon completion of all tasks. Most of the time activities in these areas might span a few days so it didn’t make sense to write an entry every day it occurred so holding back and doing one entry that covered what took place made sense. What we would do is take notes and pictures that could be leveraged for the formal entry.
If an entry had a task that wasn’t completed or adjacent activity you will usually see something that states “follow-up tasks” in an orange highlight followed by what those tasks could be. When that task was picked up again then there is a “follow-up task from date” highlighted in green notation at the top of an entry.
Things don’t have to be perfect and there are times that entries or information gets left out or overlooked. If something happened in the past that we forgot to included we didn’t go back and add the information to the entry where it belonged. TBH, if we thought of something we forgot we usually just left it out completely rather than making a new entry. I can only think of a couple times where we wished we wouldn’t have left something out and would have included it.
TLDR: do what makes sense for your notebooking style while avoiding editing previous entries or adding new ones in the past.
The notebook linked was done primarily in Microsoft Word. Tables in table were used to get the formatting that was used.
You can see the outline of the primary table that was used for each entry that includes the entry header, main body, and signature area. Within the main body there might be other tables for text next to images or testing data that may or may not show a border.
Thanks. I do have a decent notebook outline. I just think of entries I should add (and when I mean entries, I mean “sections”) that are not regarding meetings or programming, but rather something like a “design brief” or something." I do go back and add sections later sometimes. The thing is that these entries are not time bound or specific to any date. It’s just something we’re supposed to do at the beginning of the season which we most certainly are doing.
Last season in IQ (we’re going into V5 High School this year hehe), I was also the main notekeeper for the team, and I added/edited past entries. I know, big rookie mistake, but it was my first time doing a notebook and I’m still very proud of it. So, yeah, definitely not going to edit meeting entries or programming entries unless I’m just checking for grammar.
So, regarding each section of the notebook, should I just do what flows best and simply say that the section was added later on? It’s not like I’m adding things that were days and days later, it’s just not a perfect timeline. I do plan on having some separate timelines in accordance to the EDP, although I am planning to organize our time correctly so it is sectioned naturally. I would just add in the sections where they fit best, but I’m afraid it’d count against the notebook. Perhaps I should just say that it was added later and hope for the best?
Wow that’s an amazing notebook, no wonder you have done so well! I was just wondering about the bit at the start that outlines the game as well as different drive trains. (I am doing IQ so I would appreciate answers related to that rather than V5RC thanks) is that necessary? It seems like very good research but did you actually build all those drive trains? I’m lucky because I have like 6 weeks left before summer break but I want to spend my time well for the competition kick off in October. Thanks
Do what you feel is the most comfortable. You don’t have to have a particular order to all entries. As your season develops actions do not happen linearly and you may find yourself repeating tasks out of order. Again what we put together is just a guide and not a strict way to do things. Another way to look at what we called ‘sections’ in the guide is to look at them as topics for the notebook.
The game overview and analysis is good to do regardless of the specific competition. This gives an initial chance to evaluate the objectives for the current seasons game and to look into any
specific rules that might affect design choices such as what subsystem to build and if there are any restrictions around them.
Outside of that, the design elements could easily be integrated into other entries or topics as you develop your robot design and are evaluating what works for your team.
Depends on which ones you are referring to in the notebook. The ones mentioned on pages 8~9 are example drivetrains, some of which we may have done in the past but are really they are there to describe options that might be viable.
The ones further in the notebook, such as on page 23,27~28, 34~37, 183~186, or anything else noted in ‘Appendix B - Iteration Guide’ we built.
Sorry, but do you have a way to display the notebook in a different way? I really would like to see it, but my school has tiny.us links blocked for whatever reason.
This is so cool. I’m in charge of notebooking for this upcoming 2024-25 season, and all of your links and information are super helpful! Thank you for providing such a great resource!
