Our team, lambert 109x has won the exelence award this year and we wanted to share some tips on how to make a great Engineering notebook. Hope you enjoy!
Table of Contents
Table of Contents is an absolutely neccesary page for any journal as it lets the reader know where specific parts of the design process is located, and it also organizes the notebook in a neat and meaningful way.Team Profile.
A team profile is a great way to start any notebook as it gives people an insight on how your team was formed, your main goals for the season, and the roles each individual on the team plays. A good team profile has some form of a visual representation of the team and their roles in the design process.Game Analysis
Each year Vex presents teams with a different set of problems that students must solve by creating a functional robot to solve. Most teams intially have a different perspective on what the solution to the problem could be, and thats what the game analysis is all about what the game appears to you that is factually accurate, but through your teams perspective. The perspective could change as the game progresses, and those updated views would also need to be documented in your journal.Sketches, CAD, and Photos
CAD is something that can be put in the journal based on the teams opinions on whether they would like to design the robot in advance. Several softwares such as Fusion 360, Inventor Proffesional, and 3D builder are out there that can be used as a way to plan robot designs, and simulate how it would work. Sketches in our opinion is very important as it gives the reader an insight on what the robot would look like. Photos can be used to augment sketches to show how designs look like after implementing them.