The Engineering Notebook One Teams Perspective and Practices – Presented by FTC Team #4982, Café Bot.

The Engineering Notebook

On e T e a m

’ s P e r s p e c tiv e a n d P r a c ti

c e s – P r e s e n t e d

b y F T C T e a m # 4 9 8 2 , C a f é B o t

What is th

e Engineering

Notebook?

US FIRST recommends some online researchon what a professional engineering notebook should

look like. Do this before you get started on yours.

An engineering notebook is a collection place for all of your design ideas. It should(almost) be possible for someone to rebuild your robot based on your records andyour diagrams. Pictured below left is part of a page from Leonardo DaVinci’s notebook. The photo on the right shows a tank built from his designs centuries later.

We found these example pages from a professional engineering notebook on the ASU Polytechnic Engineering website.

https://sites.google.com/a/asu.edu/engineering/using-your-notebook

We found this information on the ASU website, in an article on “Using Your Notebook” by Mark Henderson, ASU Polytechnic Engineering.

Keeping an engineering notebook is a good engineering habit! Here are some instructions from a company on how engineersare to keep their notebook:

- Write EVERYTHING down; even include a dentist appointment! That’s what helps make it a believable legal document.

- Keep the notebook up to date and have it witnessed often by those whom you trust and who understand your work.

- This can mean the difference between owning your patent rightsto your work or NOT!

One of the goals of FIRST and FTC is to recognize the engineeringdesign process and the “journey” a team makes together.

Phases of this journey include:

- The problem definition (the Kickoff!)

- Concept design

- System-level design

- Detailed design

- Test and verification

- Production (the actual robot build)

As you build your robot, you will run into obstacles, learn lessons and youwill need to draw things out on paper. This is where you and your teamwill use an engineering notebook!

Your notebook follows your team from kickoff to competition.

Judges review your engineering notebook to better understand yourjourney, your design and your team.

FIRST wants you to use your engineering notebook to:

- DOCUMENT OBSTACLES THAT WILL BE FACED

- HIGHLIGHT LESSONS LEARNED

- SKETCH OR DRAW IDEAS FOR DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING

- RECORD THE RESULTS OF DEVELOPMENT AND TESTING

- DOCUMENT TEAM DECISIONS

ENGINEERING NOTEBOOK

GUIDELINES AND FORMATTING

REQUIREMENTS

G E NE R A L G U I D E L I N

E S F OR B O T H H A N

D WR I T T E N

A ND

E L E C T R ON

I C NO T E B O

OK S

1. DOCUMENT EVERYTHING!!

The FTC Engineering Notebook is a COMPLETE documentation ofyour team’s robot design for a given season. A new notebook is tobe created for each new season.

This documentation should include…

SketchesDiscussions and team meetingsDesign evolutionProcessesObstaclesEACH TEAM MEMBER’S THOUGHTS throughout the journey

Sketches

Pictures and sketches ofYour robot design are Recommended as part

Of a thorough documentation.

Team meeting

designevolution

testing

obstacles

2. NEW FOR THIS SEASON: The Engineering NotebookMUST be divided into multiple sections! The three sections are as follows:

ENGINEERING SECTION (required)- This section is for the robot design process

TEAM SECTION (required)- This section is for team information, outreach activities, and team activites(such as parties)

BUSINESS PLAN/STRATEGIC PLAN/SUSTAINABILITY PLAN (optional)

The Engineering Section

Start a fresh page in the Engineering Section at every team meeting!

The DATE and START/STOP TIMES should be recorded when startingeach new page.

EACH DAY SHOULD START WITH TWO COLUMNS:

1. TASKS COLUMN – What is your team doing and discovering?

2. REFLECTIONS COLUMN – Where your team records thoughtson what is happening and any questions that need to be answered.

Two examples of Task and Reflections columns:one handwritten and one computer-generated

All designs and changes to your robot should be recordedDirectly into the Engineering Section of your notebook.

The inclusion of all details and sketches are preferable.

IF YOU ARE USING A HANDWRITTEN NOTEBOOK:

Notes and calculations should be done in your notebook,NOT on loose paper!

The Team Section

Start the team section of your notebook by introducing each team memberand mentor with a brief biography of their name, age (or school year),interests, and reasons for joining your FTC team.

Photos along with the bios would serve as a great visual for the judges toGet to know each member of your team.

The Team Section is also a good place to discuss and show team activitiesthat are done throughout the team’s season. This includes outreach.

volunteering/outreach

page

3. Your team name andnumber must appearon the outside cover

of yourEngineering

Notebook.

4. TEAM SUMMARY PAGE – new for this season

The summary page should be attached to the frontcover of your Notebook.

The summary sheet should give the judges an overview of your seasonhighlights. It should also contain your TEAM NUMBER and point the judges to the pages in your Notebook that you would most like them toconsider.

Teams must tab/flag 6 to 8 pages of the Engineering Section toSupport entries on the summary page.

5. Your notebook should be organized. You want it to beeasy for an outsider to understand your team and your journey.

6. Written entries must be in PERMANENT INK – not pencil.

7. Pages must be numbered. They should not be removed or replaced.

8. In the case of an error, draw a single line through theincorrect data. Do NOT erase or use correction fluid. Allcorrections should be initialed and dated.

9. Entries should be made by EVERY team member. All entries need to be initialed (or signed) and dated.

The notebook may be maintained by a single person, but this year therules are quite clear that entries need to be made by EVERY team

member, regardless.

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 mentorsof the team.

10. Use both sides of a page. Never leaveany blank space: “X” out or crosshatch all unused space, and initial and date.

11. We recommenda Table of Contents. You can purchase Blank Notebooks with a table of contents “built in” to the front of the notebook (more on this in a later section).

12. How to insert pictures/photos or outside informationinto your notebook (handwritten version only):

Tape the picture into your notebook and outline it with permanent ink. This lets the judges know that somethingwas there in the event that it falls out. If you insert an entirepage, be sure to put the corresponding page numberon that inserted page!

13. Insert a Bill of Materials (BOM) into your engineeringnotebook (as required by the rules in the annual GameManual). Be sure to bring a second copy of your BOM for hardware inspection.

Handwritten or E

lectronic?

?

- This decision is entirely up to the team.

- No distinction is to be made between handwritten andelectronic Engineering Notebooks during judging.

So…the real question you need to ask yourself is:

What works best for me? Which format am I mostComfortable with?

We’ve tried both formats hereat Café Bot.

Electronic Notebooks

Teams may choose to use electronic or online programs tocreate their notebook.

For judging purposes, teams must print out their notebook pages and place them in a binder – NO LARGER THAN 1 1/2” THICK.

All pages must be numbered and in order.

Only one copy is required per team.

Benefits of the electronic notebook:

- Possibly easier to organize with the new rules (regarding separate sections on the engineering and outreach pages)

- Easy to keep a very clean, professional look

- Easy to keep “backups” of your notebook (in case of loss or damage)

- Easy to create a tasks/reflections template

- We have found that many high school students prefer to typeout their thoughts rather than handwrite…you might find you have better “notebook compliance” with this format.

US FIRST has a great example of an electronic notebook on their website:http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/ftc/team-resources

Handwritten Notebooks

Spiral-bound, laboratory, or documentation notebooks are readilyavailable for teams to use for their Engineering Notebook. Thereis 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 may submit multiple handwritten notebooks if needed; besure to clearly label them “Book 1 of 2, Book 2 of 2” and so forth.

Benefits of the handwritten notebook:

- Based on our team’s experiences so far, it seems thehandwritten notebook is what is actually used in industry.

- The handwritten notebook is a very “real” documentation of yourteam’s journey. If handwritten, judges like to see the “real thing”complete with misspellings, stains, worn edges and wrinkledpages.

- You can put photos, printouts, schedules and so forth directlyinto your handwritten notebook…no need to scan things in.

Some Engineering Notebook resources:

www.technoguards.org-This is a website from a past FTC team that usedan online template for their notebook.

www.bookfactory.com-This is a great place to purchase engineering notebooks for handwriting. They have a large selection of notebooks withbuilt-in Table of Contents and pre-numbered pages.

Here is a judge summarysheet. This represents someof what judges are lookingfor in your notebook.

Note that the Notebook is extremely important for theThink Award and theInspire Award.

It also plays a key partwhen a team is beingconsidered for any ofthe judged Awards!

Café Bot Notebook tips

Keep it real.

Keep it organized.

Stay on top of it!

Pictures, tables, CAD or other graphics are great:the more the better.

The most important thing regarding our Engineering Notebook:

WHAT WE LEARN IS MORE IMPORTANT THANWHAT WE WIN!

Our notebook has shown us how much we havelearned and grown in a relatively short time together as a team!

Questions?

Presented by FTC Team #4982, Café Bot

www.cafebot.orgwww.cafebot.net