Hello everyone, I have some questions about notebooking. This is my 3rd year in Vex IQ, but all of those years were in school, and this year is my first year actually doing competitions. This might seem obvious to you guys, but am I supposed to do notebooking? I’m asking this just to make sure, but I do have some other questions. Is it used in competition interviews? Also, if y’all have tips, please tell me. If you decide to tell me some things, please explain from the absolute start, because the only thing I know about notebooking is that it’s about writing on a notebook. Thank you!
Thank you for the reply! So, notebooking is basically a journal about making your robot? And, can notebooking get you an award in a competition that is really important (e.g. an award that makes you qualify for a bigger competition)?
Yes. Again, you should look at different threads. You can probably find lots of examples online, and during that time, I can compile some blank templates if you would like
To qualify for most awards you have to have a notebook. But it is not required. Although Pls make a notebook! It is crucial to getting almost all of the awards at comps.
Yes. Before the Vex RECF split, you could win the Design award, Innovate award, Excellence award, etc. with a good notebook, and you also can’t win Create award, Build award, or Think award without a notebook. (I don’t know what awards this year will be, though).
You can find awards in the GRSF library.
Thank you for the reply! Yes, I will look at the other threads and examples online. However, you don’t have to create a blank template, because I got one from the vex library. Thank you, this has been really helpful!
Thank you for the reply! How much do you think the notebooks affects the awards?
Thank you for the reply! Does this mean that the only qualifying award I can get without a notebook is the award for being the champion, therefore meaning that most people do notebooks to raise their chances? Thank you!
A lot, a few years of ms we had no notebook and never got any awards.
I’m really bad at notebooking but I was the notebooker for two years going on three! Yes, notebooking is necessary, but i only wrote what we did that day. Like we replaced the drivetrain, worked on the claw, etc., so thanks for the notebooking ideas!
Thank you for the reply! I thought that notebooking was a thing to help teams for awards, but I guess they were much more important. Thank you for the information!
Thank you for the reply! Did you write illustrations, or did you treat it as a diary sort of thing? It’s really helpful to hear information from people with experience, so thank you!
I do not do VEX IQ and never did, but I assume that the notebook is similar. Notebooking is VERY important. I’ve known a few judges, and all of them like a good notebook. Make sure to have one, and document everything you do in it. Try not to make it like a diary though. A good philosophy is that the judges should be able to build your robot using your notebook. This last year my team was heavily carried by our notebook, and we won 5 innovate awards with it. What we did was divide each robot we made into a big section, then smaller sections within that one for the various mechanisms. Your notebook can never be too long, but it certainly can be too short. Ours was on the lower end of the teams at our school, and we had about 200 pages at the end of the year. I would look at some successful teams notebooks for inspiration if I were you.
Thank you for the reply! So in summary, I should record what I did every day, but try to not make it like a diary. And about your philosophy that judges should be able to build my robot, should I make sketches, should I make a detailed description, or something else? Also, I tried notebooking yesterday, is this good? Please give feedback on the notebook. Thank you!
Of course! You don’t necessarily need to record every single day, but just some pages when you make something or encounter an issue. On your question about sketches, I personally would make a digital notebook, as you won’t need to draw everything and can just take pictures. Most teams prefer Google slides, though I guess you could use google docs or another presentation making app. Physical notebooks can be good, but they are typically worse than digital ones. It’s much easier to switch now while you are early in the notebook. About your notebook, it looks pretty good, though what I have been told by one of the best notebooks in the US is to use bullet points, as judges have potentially 60 notebooks to look at, and don’t have the time to read each one, so they typically just skim it and look at the part of your robot you submitted for the innovate award.
Bottom line; use a digital notebook, use bullet points, and look at other peoples notebooks.
I’m happy to share my teams notebook from this year if you’d like, though it was not perfect.
Thank you for the reply! Yes, I would greatly appreciate you showing your team’s notebook! On your suggestion about doing it digitally, you recommend it because I can put pictures right? Because I personally prefer physical over digital, do you think if I printed the images, would it have the same quality as a digital one? Thank you!
Yes, I’m recommending it because of the ability to add images. It also makes it far easier to edit something if you need to change it or add something. You can also add pages between others and easily delete things. I also prefer physical for most things, though digital notebooks are infinitely better. Printing images also uses a LOT of ink, as you would have to do it in color, and you need between 1 and 5 images for some pages. Also, when you submit the notebook to judges, you will have to send the entire physical thing, and can’t edit it while they have it. It could also get damaged.
Also, here’s my teams notebook, I removed the pages about our team for privacy but nothing else is changed. It’s not completely done, as we were expecting to go to worlds but had our innovate award stolen from us, but it’s mostly complete.
Let me know if this link doesn’t work, but it should.
Did you add other pages explaining the engineering design process and game and stuff? Those are good things for a notebook. Also, my team uses a calendar in the notebook, but that’s not completely necessary.