I am not familiar with using notebooks for robotics, but I’ve decided I really need something good because I want to have a chance to get awards. However, I’ve already built/designed most of my over under robot. At some point I will likely disassemble it and reassemble it with better build quality, but how would I write a notebook for this robot if I’ve already gone through a lot of the problem solving outside of a notebook? Is that possible or is it a bit too late to start a notebook if I’ve already been working on the robot without one for a couple months?
So in the notebook, you will likely have it in the order of: Game Explanation, Ideas, Prototyping, Building, Testing, Testing, Testing, Competition, Competition Review.
What you could do is in the ideas section, take each mechanism (drivetrain, intake, shooter, hang, etc) of your old robot and describe why you chose that design over potential other designs you thought of. Make sure to describe every alternative for each mechanism. .Then your prototyping you would show the current robot that is already built, and highlight the pros and cons of this robot, as well as the issues that arose while testing and in competition.
While this won’t be NEARLY as thorough as starting the notebook and robot at the same time, it will be a starting point that doesn’t undermine the earlier problem solving you have done. The way I would think about it as the current robot is one you built over the summer before school/season started. Then, consider the rebuilt robot as the first robot of the season but now you have the knowledge from testing that “summer” robot.
As it is with notebook, it will be tedious. However, with time and perseverance it will become better and the results will show. Good luck!
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Luckily I have a team member who is apparently really good at notebooking and sketching, I just needed to know how this works when I’ve already built a robot before starting a good notebook. Thanks for the help!
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