I won’t be able to assemble/work with a full team until school starts again in the middle of August. I also wanted to brainstorm and design during this summer (And possibly start on working on prototypes, too.)
My main concern is what this means for my engineering notebook. I want a really good engineering notebook, so I am going to start documenting my brainstorming and possible strategies very soon. But I will have no team members working with me for these big first steps of the design process, which I can see being a big issue. (Plus, my team introduction section will be empty. Do I dare leave those pages blank and fill it out later?)
Should I start working during the summer without teammates, or is it necessary to have an assembled team before I start? Do I have to wait to start writing stuff in August, reenacting the design process, even though I already know tons about the game right now?
I would begin working on the notebook immediately and forget about the team introduction section for now. It is perfectly fine to leave those blank and then fill those in later. Once you do add more members, you could state that now we have assembled our team and fill out the team intro section then. When I added a new member to my team right before Worlds, I just mentioned that he is now joining the team, mentioned why we are adding him, and then continued the notebook as normal.
Thanks so much!
So, I should just leave 2 or 3 pages blank for team intro, and fill it out later. And I should date it and sign it like any other entry, it’d just have to be out of chronological order.
You could do it like that, but honestly, what my team does is a completely separate section with team information and intros. That section doesn’t go within the daily journals part and isn’t dated. I know people emphasize putting dates on everything, but trust me. There is no need to date pages like these.
By doing it this way, you wouldn’t have to worry about leaving pages blank in the beginning and hoping that you leave enough blank.
Where do you like to put this separate section? It’s still in your notebook, right?
Also, I had a new idea: Introduce myself at the beginning, and just explain that more team members will be introduced as they are added when school starts. When that time comes, I would have an additional team introduction section which sets everyone’s roles up.
Personally, I think team bios belong in the engineering journal - not engineering notebook. We just listed the names of the team members in the front cover of the EN and left the rest of the EN about the robot. “Fluff” stuff like the fact that someone skateboards or likes pizza is not really appropriate in the EN (IMHO).