What is the difference between the engineering notebook and the robotics binder

At the very end of the day, generally when match play or alliance selection is complete, teams pick up their notebooks from some central location. The Design Award has very specific criteria to evaluate the notebooks; that criteria can be found on pages of the Judges Guide.

If you are not familiar with this rubric, go and download it right now. There has been many, many discussions on the VEX Forum about whether a bound notebook is superior to a 3-ring binder, whether handwritten or typed is better, etc. While that phrase remains unchanged, as of —18 the Design Award Rubric now gives a 3-point bonus for a bound notebook in lieu of a 3-ring binder. Some teams still find, for many different reasons, that the binder approach works better for their team, and will continue doing things that way, with the understanding now that they will not get the 3 bonus points.

This clarification in the official scoring document will serve to alleviate some judging disparities and variability between events. At one Starstruck state championship event, the judges refused to accept any notebooks that were not bound; all teams that had maintained 3-ring notebooks throughout the year and had been submitting them for evaluation at tournaments all year long were immediately out of the running for most judged awards at that tournament. Needless to say, many teams were devastated and irate.

Now, judges will have no reason to reject a 3-ring binder or to assume that it is not allowed, and will be one step toward greater judging consistency. My personal recommendation is to use a bound composition book from the get-go. REC even sends you one for free when you register your team!

But in the most practical sense, my team would use a bound notebook simply to get the 3 bonus points hey, every little bit helps. Or if your team is using the REC-provided notebook, which is 3-hole punched, they can put the engineering notebook in the 3-ring binder and submit it all that way. The Design Award rubric pages of the Judges Guide is crystal clear about what scores points for this award.

The thing that our team did not realize in our rookie season is that there is stuff that must be at the beginning of the book if you want to score points in certain categories.

The REC-provided notebook as well as commercially available lab notebooks, like the one we use now includes a built-in TOC to make life easy for you. The Awards Appendix states on page Students should include a number of items in their Engineering Notebook including: a table of contents …. While not specified in the award criteria, our engineering notebook includes a team introduction right at the start, with a group photo and description, followed by 3-to-a-page team member bios and photos student age, school, interests.

We have a team with only people on it, and in our rookie year we thought this was kind of stupid to give people specific roles, since we only have 6 people and everyone was involved in many aspects. We are an all-girls team, and so we decided that the primary person responsible for a task, say, programming, would be Programming Queen, and the secondary person would be Programming Princess. Anyone else would be Programming Peon. The notebook shows good use of human resources by assigning members roles based on their strengths.

This was one we totally blanked on our first year. In the Design Award rubric, full points are scored for this line-item if the notebook. You have to describe the game? What does this really mean? This step is actually a little microcosm of the real engineering world. One of the coaches on the fabulous World Coaches Association Facebook group says:. One adage is … the most expensive mistakes are made on the first day of the [project].

Q: Aside from what FIRST sets as minimum requirements for both the engineering notebook and the engineering portfolio, are the judges more concerned with the format requirements and presentation, or the content? A: The judges who review the engineering portfolio are instructed that content is most important.

Teams should still ensure the engineering portfolio is well formatted. If the portfolio is hard to read, not well organized, etc. Q: Are there any recommendations for the amount of pages in each section engineering, team plan, etc.

Q: Can a team show videos of the robot in the presentation to the Judges? Are there rules about the presentation? Teams may show a video of their robot during the 5-minute presentation period, but the video must not include sound and team must narrate the video during the interview. Q: Will the Judges be able to or allowed to reference external materials web sites, YouTube videos, etc.

A: Like at a traditional event, judges will not access materials that are not presented as part of the judging interview. Judges are instructed to only use information that is presented to them and are generally instructed not to follow links, etc. The only exception is for the Control Award submission which specifically calls out a video link that will demonstrate the control features that the team wants to highlight. Q: Could a team submit a pre-recorded video as their judging presentation?

A: Teams cannot submit a video in place of their live judging presentation. For the upcoming season, we have launching event registration, with invitations going to mentors. Watch your email! For new teams, please email community firsttechsocal. Email address:. A: There are no recommendations for the amount of pages in each section. FIRST wants everyone to make a contribution to the notebook.

This provides each team member with at least some experience with documentation and creates a well-rounded notebook. Entries should highlight the thoughts of all team members and mentors of the team.

Use both sides of a page. We recommend a Table of Contents. This lets the judges know that something was there in the event that it falls out. If you insert an entire page, be sure to put the corresponding page number on that inserted page! Be sure to bring a second copy of your BOM for hardware inspection. So…the real question you need to ask yourself is: What works best for me? Which format am I most Comfortable with? All pages must be numbered and in order. Only one copy is required per team.

There is also a notebook supplied to FTC teams for free when the team registers each season. As with the electronic notebook, all pages must be numbered. Some of the notebooks already come with numbered pages. There must not be any missing pages! You can put photos, printouts, schedules and so forth directly into your handwritten notebook…no need to scan things in. They have a large selection of notebooks with built-in Table of Contents and pre-numbered pages.

This represents some of what judges are looking Here is a judge summary sheet. This represents some of what judges are looking for in your notebook. It also plays a key part when a team is being considered for any of the judged Awards!

Keep it organized. Stay on top of it! Pictures, tables, CAD or other graphics are great: the more the better. Our notebook has shown us how much we have learned and grown in a relatively short time together as a team! Xingwei Wang.

By Mr. Why Keep an Engineering Notebook? Who Keeps an Engineering Notebook?