What are your thoughts on my journal?

VEX Robotics Competition Discussion V5RC > High Stakes (24/25)
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As this time is off-season and a perfect time to start researching and brainstorming, me and my team have already started our journal and are wondering if it is starting off good. We’re just in need of different opinions as we have already consulted with our coachs and its looking good to them. It can be found here: 3685D’s Journal ~ 2023-2025 Season

Please don’t delete anything. :relieved:

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Link doesn’t work. It says I need access.

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If you want fellow VEX members’ thoughts on it, we’ll need to see it first. Currently, we don’t have access.

To give access to view (and possibly comment/give edits that you can choose to do or ignore, if you wish), do the following:

  1. Click on share on the top-right of the google-slides journal
  2. Name it if it asks you to.
  3. There will be an area for General Access.
  4. Click on Restricted.
  5. Below that, choose “Anyone with the link”
  6. (optional) If you want to make people able to comment, click on the dropdown on the right of the popup, and choose “Commenter”
  7. Click Save, and it should be fine now.
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I have updated it and thanks for the step by step, that was my bad.

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hello. we are new to vrc and love your notebook. how do you get the CAD like pictures of say- your drivetrain ideas on page 21?

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Not an expert here but I like the creative design process. I like the words like “Imagine” and “create” instead of basic things like “research” and “brainstorming.”

I think it’s important to be different, even when you’re doing a basic thing like making a flow chart for the EDP.

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First, I know some people debate this, but the notebook is not a journal according to REC Foundation

REF Foundation - Engineering Notebook vs Team Journal

Now onto some initial feedback.

  • Noticed there weren’t any entry dates and the pages weren’t signed which you may want to consider
  • For the bullet points, you may want to consider using left justification as at the moment you have everything centered for most pages
  • You may want to consider starting your page numbering with the first page after the TOC, Team Profile page, as it may make it easier to keep track of pages and not require you to update the TOC if you need to add any additional TOC pages if you go past page 116
  • Noticed you have EDP categories noted on some paged, but it doesn’t appeared described till several pages in which may leave some wondering what the words mean on the first several pages
  • be careful with margins in case you have a need to print the notebook for physical submission at a competition
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Our coach gave us a Google Docs with vex parts that you can copy and paste into your journal. Here: Vex Parts

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It’s 1469A!!! Thanks for the tips, our EDP was recently added so, we have to work on the order. Thanks again for taking your time to read it.

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I would align your design process to the Notebook Rubric from the Guide to Judging.

While being creative with name, such as bizarre new names for game objects, best to use same terminology as used in industry.

I believe there is a disconnect between your analysis of suitability for drive train and other major decisions, before specifying what actions your team needs to accomplish for the game. So for example, there is no connection between what your drive train needs to have in terms of supporting manipulation of mobile goals… for example, do you want to possess mobile goal inside your robot, in-front, or …

I think you have more work to do with regards to game analysis, scoring and swings, etc to connect them to your design decisions. Also, in your analysis - unclear how specific game rules impact design constraints of your robot – i.e., lift design, why is horizontal or vertical constraints are not focus in design analysis…

Pro tip, once a page is completed, do not go back and modify, but rather provide additional pages to refine design understanding and as others have pointed out - date each page,

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I have a bit of a pedantic nitpick but the “H drive” you showed on slide 20 is a tank drive, it doesn’t technically become an H drive until the middle horizontal wheel is added, and on 10 you say the high stake is worth 4 pts. Also in 9-12 the pages are very cluttered, spacing things out more or splitting those into multiple pages might fix that. For the autonomous planning pages I would recommend a picture of the field with the path on it as a visualization. Also pedantic, but between slides the text size is inconsistent

On the more positive side you very clearly go into all of the scoring methods and the slide with comparisons to other games was very smart. I really like Slide 13 the formatting is cleaner and the explanations are clear.

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@Foximusprime @lacsap @iiwii @PowerSupply-72837A I thank you all for the amazing tips an information you’ve given me, I’ll be revisin it tonight. :smiley:

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This link for your parts isn’t working, and i would love to see them. Do you by any chance have another link you could share?

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I don’t own the document so, here’s another one

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It looks good. Streamlined and to the point, only critique I can give (really, not important) is that you could probably add borders to your images given that it is Google Slides. This will improve the look and make it seem a little more organized and thought out. Otherwise, it’s good! I might take inspiration from how you arrange your pages.
What format are you using? Can you post it? It doesn’t look like the standard one, but I think I’d like this one better with a few personal tweaks.

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Hey guys,
I have seen some people have posted their teems “journal”, my team was unaware of this component of the competition as this is our first year coming from FRC.
So, could someone explain this and what you need it for.

Thanks guys

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Hello!
The notebook is an important tool for VRC, as it allows you to earn several awards, including excellence.
It is simply an engineering log; using the design process seen in other media, you apply it into your notebook and explain your season’s building, programming, and various other material in said journal.

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Refrain from putting Google Classroom links in the VEX Forum.

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