Hi,
So looking through the game manual I didn’t see anything about an engineering notebook or a team journal? Do we need to have any kind of notebook or journal for the 2010-2011 season?
Thanks!
Team 988
You do not need to. FIRST imposes no restrictions on how you build your robot, FIRST only restricts the materials you use to build it.
However, you will find that an engineering notebook may come in handy in a number of situations.
At competition you will find it useful for talking to judges. Having a notebook with a log of your progress through the season will greatly assist you in sharing your team’s experience.
In future years, you can reflect on the journal and find ways to improve your team. You can look back on how meetings were run, which designs did and didn’t work, etc.
All in all, an engineering journal is easy to keep up to date (spend 5 minutes or so at the end of every meeting logging your progress), and can reap great rewards.
As mentor I keep a notebook for each new robot. I use a big 3 ring binder. I print out the rules and updates and KOP list, and keep them in it, so we have a handy reference. I print data sheets for components we are planning on using, and those we buy, so we can have the data handy. I keep all the sketches I make (and a lot of sketches that students make and leave laying around), and try to date and attribute each one. A few other things make their way in there too. Wiring info about the robot, etc is nice to have in a place you know where to find it.
I require that my programmers keep a composition book for each build season. They are supposed to do all calculations, pseudocode, and any notes on where things are plugged in and basic robot information in there. That way if there is a question on how to do something or where something is supposed to be plugged in they have one place to go look for it. They are also required to make entried after each meeting about what was done and how it was done.