hello! I am a 4th year notebooker, but this year is the first year I’m doing the notebook myself, and id rather not have to restart this year. I was wondering how I should set up my pages. most importantly, building pages but anything helps! Thanks.
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Look at YouTube and examples of notebooks for inspiration. That’s what I did and it helped me a lot!
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ive done a lot of research, so im probably overthinking it, i jus want my notebook to be good.
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Did you find anything useful? I’m sure you would have, but is there anything specific you want help with besides formatting? Because examples on YouTube and anywhere else have really good formatting.
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i have, yes. but like the order is what is getting me. for example, team intro, design process, game intro, rules, scoring; then i donk know where to go from there.
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Then I would do a design brief. List all your constraints, what you need to have in order to be successful, etc.
List all of your progress, lessons you learned, what you changed, etc. for each practice. Make sure to include lots of pictures!
For tournaments, break it down into sections. Give a brief summary, explain autonomous, explain driving and strategy for qualification matches, alliance partners, driving strategy in elimination matches, skills, competitiveness, noteworthy teams, results, and then a conclusion with how you will improve for the next tournament.
I’m sorry if this isn’t very helpful, it’s easier for me to explain it in some ways more than others.
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okay, thank you so much!
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No problem! You’re welcome! Hopefully this was helpful!
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it really was, thanks again!
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when i do my building pages, I Format like this:
Title (underlined)
Date of meeting (underlines)
- Todays objective: do a thing (write here)
(then basically just format the rest in bullet points starting with:
- what you need your mechanism to do
- potential solutions
- ideas
- Brainstorming
- tables comparing devices and prototypes are also really great, and especially professional looking if handrawn directly into the notebook
- Maybe insert CAD drawings if used (state the program used)
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also providing hand drawings of mechanisms and diagrams of your robot handrawn look really impressive if you can pull it off. What the judges really love is when you test out prototypes and actually document it all along with the testing and results of each mechanism, and then make a decision in the notebook based off of it
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wow, ive never thought about that really. your notebook must be really good!
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one main thing my last notebooks lacked was testing. we don’t do much testing, we kinda just build and see how it works at a comp then go from there 
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Well, we all learn from our mistakes and then try to be better next time. My first notebook from my very first season…let’s just say that it had some areas of improvement. I conducted research on how to improve for last season and it helped me. Now this upcoming season, I will try to improve even more in any way I can! Never give up, be determined, and keep trying. I know that your notebook(s) will be awesome this season if you’re dedicated to it!
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yea ive already put like 30 hours into the notebook for this season already. oops THERE GOES MY FREE TIME lol. But its looking a lot better than last year. Lets just say last years was…beginners notebook lol
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i already have 31 handrawn, handrwitten pages in our documentation, but it took SO MUCH time. Crossing my fingers it will pay off and we can get at least a Judges award, but hopefully the Excellence award
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3249U here! I’d suggest using a scrum meeting at the beginning of your build entries- it really helps to show what each person is doing, what your status is, and how it fits into your overall objective and timeline. You can check out our last year’s notebook here btw! Good luck!
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thank you so much!!
20char
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yeah i feel that on a whole another level
i mostly want a second interview. my past notebooks were okay, but the competition around me is tough.