Judging Engineering Notebook—Format Requirements

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At the last local qualifier we competed in, we were informed by the Judge Advisor that some technical requirements of the notebook is the deciding factor on whether the notebook is considered for Excellence and Design awards or not. It was clearly communicated with everyone in attendance that even if the notebook is good but does not have these technical formatting requirements in place that the notebook would be sorted in the “no good” pile.

I cannot find said requirements in the rubric or the Guides to Judging Engineering Notebook section of the REC Library.

I don’t have a registered team this year as we decide to join the school teams so I cannot post in the official Q&A of robotevents.com. You would need to be a judge advisor, official coach or financially responsible account to post.

Would anybody with credentials help post my questions for official answers by the judging committee? I would greatly appreciate any help. Hopefully some of you could also benefit from answers to these questions.

Post here: Q&A: Judging : Robot Events

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Would you please confirm the answers to Questions 1 & 2?

Question #1

In order to qualify for Excellence and Design awards, is it a requirement for an engineering notebook to only have one dated entry per page?

The notebook design rubric does not mention the restriction to one dated entry per page; rather it only asks for chronological dated entries.

The Guide to Judging Engineering Notebook states each page or entry should be chronologically dated, but again does not restrict to one entry per page.

  • Each page/entry chronologically numbered and dated.

An example engineering notebook posted on the REC website exemplifies the opposing stance; it contains numerous pages where each page span a range of dates in chronological order.

https://roboticseducation.org/documents/2022/09/sample-engineering-notebook-team-10703z.pdf/

Question #2

In order to qualify for Excellence and Design awards, is it a requirement for an engineering notebook to have X-ed out any unused spaces after an entry?

The notebook design rubric does not mention this as a requirement.

Engineering Notebook for patents does not require this anymore.

  • Crossing out unused parts of a page is no longer necessary because there is no need to show that nothing was added after the page was created.

Note: For student Engineering Notebooks that are submitted for awards with REC Foundation programs, please follow the information in the Guide to Judging: Judging Engineering Notebooks.

The above note directs one back to the Guide to Judging which does not require X-ing out of unused pages.

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I have been a coach, Event Partner, Referee and a Judge and a Judge Advisor for over 15 years.
As far as Question 1 goes, that requirement of one dated entry per page is not necessary. The important lines are "
"* Each page/entry chronologically numbered and dated.

  • Each page/entry signed or initialed by a student author."
    Which implys that you can have multiple entries per page, but each entry should be chronological, dated and signed by a student.
    As for question 2, NO there is NO need to cross out unused portion of a page.

Those answers being stated, did the Judge Advisor specifically state that these particular technical issues were the cause of moving notebooks to the “no good” pile? Or was it merely the mention of notebooks missing “some” unstated technical issues were sent to the “no good” pile? If it was the first cast, then the Judge Advosir was in error, in my opinion. If it was the second case, then how do you know that it was these specific technical issues that caused the movement to the “no good” pile? It was unclear from your post, to me at least, which of the above was the case.

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Thank you for your response. How I posted is essentially how it was said. I have it on video, but out of respect for the Judge Advisor who is a teacher, I am not comfortable posting it. After she explained the two technicalities that is required in the notebook, she summarized transcribed word per word is the following:

“They are the difference right now between what is keeping notebooks in line for Design and Excellence and what is pushing notebooks in…we’re sorry, this is awesome but you are missing these thing things…because the competition here is so great that it’s what’s the difference”

Our team was guilty of both these offenses.

I have asked for assistance from both our Region Event Engagement Manager and the Team Engagement Manager and they will not give me a ruling on these. I also asked for a retraction or correction to be sent to all 50 teams who attended that tournament. Instead, they arranged for a webinar that was held earlier this evening that goes over judging, the rubrics, etc.

There is no telling if the Judge Advisor and EP in question attended the webinar.

When I pressed for an official ruling, they said they cannot give me that answer and if I want an official answer, I need to post on the Q&A section of robotevents. We decided to join the school team this year instead of be a private team so I do not have any registered teams to be able to post on robotevents.

I am choosing not to implicate the school coach because there are also conflicts of interest involving the EP and the Judge Advisor.

There is another tournament held by the same EP next month. I am hoping that if I can get an official answer, I can forward that on before the next event. Although at this point, I’m really not sure if it would make a difference at all. Because of the conflicts of interest, they could just simply ignore any correction. But I am still hoping for the best!

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it is something to be posted on the Judging Q&A for sure. There have been several changes in the judging of the Engineering Notebooks over the past several years.