Hey everyone,
I’m a coach who has struggled with finding an engineering notebook format that sticks and works well with my team’s communication and documentation styles. Something that my team has access to and uses elsewhere in school is OneNote. Does anyone have any experience using OneNote as their EDN platform? Is that a submittable format or will we need to convert it to slides down the line?
T.I.A.,
Robot Snail
One note wouldn’t be ideal but still can be used. Personally I use a mix of Word, One note, and Google docs, ESPECIALLY Google docs. You could gather all the unique aspects of each app and make a notebook in Word, One note, or Keynote. Out of those three options I would give Word first place due to its formal formatting.
Welcome to the forum - I am assuming you are Adult coach, which I would remind to be careful not to Tell the teams what to do, vs showing a whole bunch of options and let them decide which to choose base on their team’s needs and skill levels. The starting point for any team is the hard copy notebook RECF provides every team with their registration, and they can explore many great documentation resources provided by VEX, RECF, and others.
Google Slides is the recommended platform, but if people on your team don’t have google accounts, powerpoint would work. I think that most competitions will take pdf files, a link to a file online (like google drive), or some only take printed notebooks. If you don’t find a good digital solution, you could also try physical notebooks.
by Whom?
If you ask the Competition Judging Committee, they do not recommend a specific platform. If I missed a Q&A or part of the Guide to Judging that does recommend Google Slides, please let me know.
Pity to still have to see and hear stuff like this;
Nothing is recommended, OP (and everyone) should use whatever they are most comfortable with. You may say that “most teams opt for Google slides” (Is that true??) “My experience with Google slides was good” but saying that it’s a recommended platform isn’t the best approach…
Anyways! @K_Khozein ! I don’t personally have any experience with OneNote but I know that if you can have a link you can submit it when signing up for competitions (something along the lines of that)
Check out this thread for more info regarding if you’re allowed to use different websites! (You are)
Hope this helps!
To clarify, you are allowed to use different websites. @lacsap and @71300ffical, I thought that the REC library says that Google slides is the recommended platform. Sorry if I’m wrong about this.
Ah,
sorry, haven’t seem the REC library talk about this (to be honest, been a while since I checked it out)-
I guess this is rather an accurate source, sorry for causing confusion 
Thanks for the correction
To make it perfectly clear- VEX has provided resources for VEX robotics teams, this is GREAT, but as has been made clear VEX !=RECF and VEX is not GDC and VEX is not Competition Judging Committee. This was a point made clear in this forum, and challenged.
That said, Bob Mimlitch III co-founder of IFI and parent company of VEX Robotics at a past Event Summit got a standing ovation from old time EPs and key volunteers for introducing a digital engineering notebook for VEX Robotics Competitions - it was huge.
Let’s look at other initiatives from VEX to support Robotics Competition that should be celebration (not comprehensive) including VEX Code VR during covid with playgrounds that supported teams during truly difficult times. As well as, comprehensive reorganization of knowledge base articles, organizations of information as Libraries, and virtually everything as a shortcut concept - though not sure there is a bob.vex.com 
but this initiative extended to RECF, and as a result a lot more access points to a lot of information.
Let’s make sure that when we reference a particular way to do something, there is a difference between lots of resources, and the official position … RECF has GDC and CJC to provide official resources for the game and judging processes, and the process for clarification (Official Q&A for Game and Judging reside on RobotEvents.com)
Have fun this season! … but know what Official means in context of match related competition and judging at events.
