Computer as Engineering Notebook

[ChrisR246]

@kmmohn

All of the above. It makes no difference to the judging, as long as it is readable!

In some areas it does make a difference in the judging - handwritten, in ink, in a bound notebook with no missing pages is the standard looked for.

[Tarek_Shraibati]

The initial question in this thread has been moved to the Official 2017 VEX Words Q & A.

[Karthik]

@Tarek Shraibati

The initial question in this thread has been moved to the Official 2017 VEX Words Q & A.

And here’s the official answer from the REC Foundation:

https://vexforum.com/index.php/conversation/post/202227

@Tarek Shraibati

It is preferred that notebooks be bound and hand written. All pictures, CAD drawings or computer code should be pasted onto pages as they are developed. Each page should be dated and signed. Notebooks are to be student produced.

Understanding that teams may have already started electronic notebooks this year, judges will accept hard copy printouts of electronic notebooks. Judges are under no obligation to accept notebooks which are submitted on computers, thumb drives, or the cloud. It is the responsibility of teams to provide notebooks in a form that judges may use for evaluation.

Bound notebooks are still the industry standard for the design process in most companies.

A number of issues have been considered in posting this statement.
-It is unrealistic to expect judges to be responsible for team laptops.
-Most judges are not willing to insert thumb drives into their computers due to potential security threats.
-Downloading from the web requires internet access in the judges room, which is often not available.
-Digital notebooks are all too often edited to look “nice” or to delete design paths that were not followed. The purpose of an engineering notebook is to accurately record the design process used by the team. This often includes ideas that are abandoned during the iterative design process. All of this information is important to judges even if it is not part of the final robot design.

Judges at VEX Worlds will only accept hard copies of notebooks that are submitted for Design Award evaluation.