Howdy,
I have recently judged an event and was very fortunate to see such amazing talent and innovation from so many amazing teams. And from that, I believe there are a lot of things that I would like to slash through the weeds for teams to have a better understanding of what should be expected with the engineering notebook.
I want to make things clear that this is my qualitative opinion and other judges may have differing opinions or expectations depending on the region. → Which, honestly, that sucks but that is just the reality of it.
So, I am willing to give some very useful advice for teams in the future to at least veer them the correct direction. This information I feel is important, and defines what I feel like matches the ‘bare minimum’ of expectations. → Treat this like guard rails to look out for when making a notebook.
DO
- Try to make your notebook professional. It is perfectly okay to add your own flare, but keep it mostly formal. → I should not see a surplus of “
” and “
” emojis in the notebook. - Add code snippets and explain the code → Tell more about your ‘robotic code stack’ and how to reproduce your code.
- If you do not know how a code template fully works, try your best to research, look under the hood, and display understanding of the concepts. Put that research in the notebook. → Please understand though that using a library will always carry a risk of being stopped at a tournament and asked to explain what is going on under the hood.
- Add images of the design process
- Add CAD and/or drawings
- Add comments in code, with proper indentation, camelCase, and style
- Embrace honesty and consistency in a confident light
DO NOT
- Do not use AI generated code. It oftentimes is obvious and sticks out like a sore thumb, especially if a judge has extensive coding experience.
- Do not put your phone number or personal information. Unless it is a mentor’s physical contact for emergency return, do not put personal information.
Additional Notes
- If you are adding videos, it will probably not be viewed due to time constraints and equally often poor/congested internet at the event
- Please double check for spelling and grammar errors in the notebook. If necessary, you could probably ask an English teacher at school to help review and assist with that.
- Stay consistent with the structure of the notebook.
- Notebooks are read pretty thoroughly, but sometimes ideas may be like a ‘needle in a haystack’ of the tens or hundreds of pages. To avoid that issue, bring up your notable cool, innovative, or creative concepts in interviews.
- Interviews are just as important as the notebook. They tie together the notebook with authenticity, merit, and opportunity. Practice for interviews ahead of time, but do not turn responses into a template.
I hope this information is resourceful for teams who need assistance with writing higher quality notebooks. I saw a previous thread about docs vs sheets for the notebook, and typically it does not really matter so long as it is organized and professional.
Thank you, and good luck!
- Connor
it obviously didn’t go well for them…