[FTC]: Engineering Notebook - PR and Electronic

[team F.T.C 4240]

Originally Posted by gblake

Derrick,

I'm not writing about your team, I'm writing to any team.

when giving other teams advice about how to make their Engineering notebooks better, I recommend being careful to explain that your advice might be more about how to make a better Season Diary (that happens to be in the Engineering Notebook); than it is about creating an Engineering Notebook that better satisfies the central thrust of the Engineering Notebook Guidelines and Think Award Criteria, and is consequently easily evaluated against those criteria. Those two subjects overlap; but they are not the same. Everyone involved in the process of advising others has a duty to be clear about those sorts of differences.

Blake

If you read my first post "The main things we put in is our first drawings, prototypes, and how we got to our finished product, this year we will have a picture book of our prototypes instead of bringing one or two of them into judging. Another thing is to put page markers/tabs into the engineering notebook to mark the more important pages/the pages you want the judges to see most." Also I posted what has worked for us in FTC, and what I thought would be helpful to other teams. The reason I am on "chiefdelphi" in the first place is to help answer questions and help teams.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by team F.T.C 4240

If you read my first post "The main things we put in is our first drawings, prototypes, and how we got to our finished product, this year we will have a picture book of our prototypes instead of bringing one or two of them into judging. Another thing is to put page markers/tabs into the engineering notebook to mark the more important pages/the pages you want the judges to see most." Also I posted what has worked for us in FTC, and what I thought would be helpful to other teams. The reason I am on "chiefdelphi" in the first place is to help answer questions and help teams.

Sounds good - You may have the last word - Between the two of us and the other comments, teams should have a good set of opinions to chew on.

It was good to see you guys at St Louis last year - Best of luck this season!

Blake

[team F.T.C 4240]

I agree, and good luck this season!!! I bet we will see some crazy designs this year (or at lest I hope so).

[Sisterg975]

Excellent discussion on the notebook. We have a new (third) team this year; I'm not sure they have as good a grip on the notebook as the other two teams we mentor have.

Thanks SO much for the enlightened discussion!

[PhilBot]

Originally Posted by Sisterg975

Thanks SO much for the enlightened discussion!

I agree!!!!

To Derrick..... You Rock!!!

Not so much because I totally agree with all your points, but because I LOVE the passion and clarity with which you presented them. You've come a LONG way buddy!!!

My own point of view...

Our team's Engineering Notebooks could afford to have MORE Engineering in them... Some more calculations, analysis, testing, results and projections. No question.

Having said that, if a team is not comfortable/able/ready for that, then there is still a LOT of value recording all that other usefull stuff (Photo record of designs, field trips, business plans, community outreach) just because these are all things that an excellent Engineer should be concerned with.

Too many Engineers (like myself) are not prepared to transition from Basic Engineering to Project Management or Starting their own Businesses because they did not get any training in the Use and Business application of their basic craft.

Does a Engineering Notebook stuffed with other related information stand up as a "pure example" of what an Engineer should produce while doing Engineering? No. But is it a great exercise in Product development? Sure is...

So...

Will it guarentee a Think Award win? Maybe not. But is it a valuable outcome of the FTC program? *I* think so.

In our own experience (at regional competitions anyway) the Judges tend to see that. At the national level the competitionn is much tougher, so the more "Pure" Engineering Notebooks seem to do better.

Phil.