Engineers Notebook

[dirkpower90]

I have read through the rules like 5 times but nowhere could i find the rules for a notebook for our team to show our progress. Is there a notebook for the competition this year?

[GaryVoshol]

Are you competing in FTC? You might ask in one of those specific forums.

FRC does not have a notebook requirement.

[Jon Stratis]

You're looking for the "Excellence in Design Award", sponsored by Autodesk. The full description is found in section 5.2 on page 3 in that chapter:

*Excellence in Design
Award
Sponsored by Autodesk
This award honors clear and compelling
evidence of excellence in design
development, documentation,
communication, and presentation. The
intention of the Award is to inspire,
recognize and celebrate design as one
way in which you can change your world.

the intention of part of that award is that the students/team will keep a design notebook to show their progress over the season. We have one notebook per subteam (mechanical, electrical, programming, PR, strategy), and some vague plans to make them electronic and possibly post sections that will be useful for other teams at the end of the season... but that's a long way off

[JesseK]

Even though there isn't a notebook requirement, I'd recommend you keep one so that future years have a 'lessons learned'. My favorites are Moleskins

[dirkpower90]

Are there any requirements for the notebook? Like what shoudl it compose of, should you use a notebook or binder.....?

[Cory]

Originally Posted by dirkpower90

Are there any requirements for the notebook? Like what shoudl it compose of, should you use a notebook or binder.....?

Typically an engineering notebook has a hard cardboard cover with the pages sewn into it-you want no possible way for the pages to come free.

See this picture for an example

[Jon Stratis]

There are no requirements for it in the competition, no.

[delsaner]

An engineering notebook is optional, but it is highly recommended. It keeps teams in order, in case someone forgot what they were doing before, its a good thing to look back on a fun/successful season, and it's a good thing to present when going to visit middle schools to recruit people. We were awarded Chairman's in Palmetto last year, and our engineering notebook played a significant role, so that a plus as well.

[dirkpower90]

Can i just use a 1" binder and print out my pages and use that as my notebook?

[nitneylion452]

Originally Posted by dirkpower90

Can i just use a 1" binder and print out my pages and use that as my notebook?

Originally Posted by Cory

Typically an engineering notebook has a hard cardboard cover with the pages sewn into it-you want no possible way for the pages to come free.

See this picture for an example

As Cory said. You want no possible way for the pages to come free. A binder tends to allow the holes to rip.

[Cynette]

Originally Posted by dirkpower90

Can i just use a 1" binder and print out my pages and use that as my notebook?

Several responses have stated that there is no notebook required.

If you choose to keep an engineering notebook, you can use any binder you want to keep the pages or use the traditional bound notebook.

Team 1511 keeps an on-line notebook so that all members of the team have access to it. We found it very impractical to have the hard bound style for so many sub-teams, especially since we were trying to keep track of notes and drawings. We will typically print off a few pages of it as a sample to have with us at competitions in case we don't have access to the internet and a judge would ask about our engineering design process.

[Jon Stratis]

Originally Posted by nitneylion452

As Cory said. You want no possible way for the pages to come free. A binder tends to allow the holes to rip.

That's true for "official" engineering notebooks - things you may be required to keep at work, for example. I work in the medical device industry, and we have very strict standards about that type of stuff. For a project like this, however, you can afford to relax the rules a little, and don't have to be so strict about what type of notebook is used.