Engineering NoteBook - 47126A (9).pdf (22.7 MB)
I was wondering what in our notebook could/should be changed so we can have a better chance of getting excellence award at states.
First thing I noticed is that your format is quite hard to read…
Going in order of the design cycle
-identify,
There’s not much analysis of game objects/the field/rules. You just copy/paste the manual which won’t get you any points. You also don’t have constraints, what’s your time like, your budget, etc. you also don’t have robot toss. You basically just say “we’ll need to have 55w on the drivetrain” without any justification.
-Brainstorm
You jump straight into decision your drivetrain with no brainstorming… after rechecking everything I don’t think you brainstorm at all.
-Decide
You don’t really justify your decisions…
-Build
The drivetrain just appears… your build steps are lacking a bit, I should be able to make the exact same robot as you just with the pics.
-Testing
There doesn’t seem to be any testing. You need to make goals, then use those to test and see if the various parts of your robot meet those goals.
I’d also try to make your design cycles clearer, try to seperate robot 1,2,3 etc.
And please cite your sources, just saying “this idea is from 12345A” isn’t a proper citation. You need at least, resource name, author, version, date released and date accessed.
Also have you read the guide to judging?
Thanks for the tips!
You should include the Decision Matrix in your design process.
Hey @ZAch9611, @Joeboticswastaken’s response is great, so adding on to that:
Engineering Design Process
From what I see, I don’t notice a particular page or description about the EDP. Especially since your notebook is colour-coded to fit the EDP (I’m inferring), I would add a page on the EDP, why it matters, how the colours correlate, etc. The colour-coding doesn’t do much if judges don’t know why it correlates.
Ease of Reading
The format is quite hard to read, and the blocks of text aren’t exactly optimal. Consider bolding and highlighting key words and phrases to make it easier to gauge info from.
The Use of “Your”
I can see in some of your pages that you use the word “your” (e.g., game analysis takeaways). IMO you could change “your” to “we” because it makes it sound more like the thought process your team went through.
Game Analysis
Like @Joeboticswastaken said, your game analysis is pretty much copy and paste from the manual, so I’d fix that… also keep in mind that step 1 of the EDP isn’t just analysing the game! You can also do pages on resource management in forms of pie charts (for budget), Gantt charts, calendars, etc. Of course, remember to tie this back to your design process, and why it matters.\
Tournament Prep and Analysis
First of all, your tournament prep is very nice, but again, add why it matters. Why are you making sure that you have those materials? Secondly, your tournament reflection: it’s great so far, but you could go more in-depth. You could make a table showing issues or mistakes you made, and how you learned from it. So far in the match analysis I only see why you won. however that’s not it; you must’ve learned something from competing.
btw, check your grammar on some entries. other than that it’s really great, good luck at states!!