Questions for Notebook

[8349P]

First of all, great job qualifying to Worlds! That is an incredible accomplishment, and shows your potential as a team.

For your first point, you cannot edit the notebook in any way, shape, or form (except for crossing out mistakes with a single line). It’s in the Judge Guide, and the main reason is so that the notebook is an accurate representation of the design process as it happened.

For your second point, there are a few resources here:

Wiki

Engineering Notebook Resources (Screen for redundant / duplicate topics) Design Award Tips? - #2 by tabor473 Starting the Engineering Notebook 2915A Engineering Notebook 2016 Notebook Tips Engineering Notebook Tips Selection and Strategy How should I start off my notebook? (Summer without teammates) what are Some Tips to add to the Notebook? Engineering Notebook Expectations At Worlds Example of an award winning notebook? What is the best piece of advice you could give for an engineeri…

This is a really good resource, and contains links to a notebook that won Design Award at Worlds (among other notebooks from prior years.)

In terms of divisions, I assume it’s going to be similar to most past years, in that the divisions are named after school subjects. For example, at Worlds 2021, there was Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Arts, and Research (two divisions each.) I haven’t been to Worlds before, but I assume all attending teams are going to be split as evenly as possible across these divisions.

A few more tips I’d give out is:

• A lot of judged awards are more than just the notebook: they are also reliant on the interview. I would practice your interviews as much as you possibly can.
• Review the Judge Guide: this contains the guidelines/rubric that your notebook is to be graded on by the judges. Make sure your notebook is following as many of the guidelines in this guide as it possibly can. Note that this is generally not the only requirement to qualify, especially at high-level competitions like regional championships and Worlds.
• Document the design process meticulously. Tests, prototypes, concepts, revisions, etc. should all go in the notebook. If it relates to the component/robot design, put it in the notebook. The judges want to see that you know how to design and document something. Also document your programming process (with glued in code), the algorithms you use in your code, and driver routes/strategy.

Also, as far as I know, judged awards are assigned per division at Worlds, so you probably have more of a chance to win a judged award than you might think.