Overview: The Engineering Notebook
REC Foundation competitions help students develop life skills that they may use in their academic and professional future. Documenting work in an Engineering Notebook is a widely used engineering and design industry practice. By following the Engineering Design Process and documenting that process in an Engineering Notebook, students practice project management, time management, brainstorming, effective interpersonal and written communication skills.
The Engineering Design Process is iterative: Students identify and define a problem, brainstorm ideas to solve the problem, test their design ideas, and continue to refine their design until a satisfactory solution is reached. Students will encounter obstacles, successes, and setbacks as they work through the Engineering Design Process. All of these should be documented by the students in their Engineering Notebook.
In REC Foundation programs, the Engineering Notebook is required for the Design, Innovate, and Excellence Awards, but is not a requirement for other awards. Submitting a notebook is not required for a team to receive an in-person interview, and all teams at an event must be given the opportunity to be interviewed.
Teams may use the notebook available from VEX Robotics, or they may purchase a different form of physical notebook. Teams may also use any one of various computer applications or cloud-based services available for digitally creating and maintaining a digital Engineering Notebook. Regardless of the format, all notebooks are evaluated by the Judges according to the same award criteria and rubric.
All Engineering Notebooks should contain these elements:
- Team number on the cover/beginning of document
- Errors crossed out using a single line (so errors can be seen)
- Unedited entries
- All pages intact; no pages or parts of pages removed
- Each page/entry chronologically numbered and dated
- Each page/entry signed or initialed by a student author
- Team meeting notes as they relate to the design process
- Permanently affixed pictures, CAD drawings, documents, examples of code, or other material relevant to the design process (in the case of physical notebooks, tape is acceptable, but glue is preferred)
Outstanding Engineering Notebooks should contain these additional elements:
- Table of contents
- Each page signed by a second witness, as well as the student author
- Notebook begins with the first team meeting
- Descriptions, sketches, and pictures of design concepts and the design process
- Observations and thoughts of team members about their design and their design process
- Records of tests, test results, and evaluations of specific designs or design concepts
- Project management practices including their use of personnel, financial, and time resources
- Notes and observations from competitions to consider in the next design iteration
- Descriptions of programming concepts, programming improvements, or significant programming modifications
- Enough detail that a person unfamiliar with the team’s work would be able to follow the logic used by the team to develop their design, and recreate the robot design using only the Engineering Notebook
Note: If the Engineering Notebook is written in a language that is not common for the region, it is the team’s responsibility to provide the original language version along with a translated copy, if any Judges fluent in the original language are not available. This should be brought to the EP’s attention as early as possible so they can inform the Judge Advisor.
Engineering Notebook Judging Process
Step 1: Sorting the Notebooks
Judges perform a quick scan of all the Engineering Notebooks and divide them into two categories: Developing and Fully Developed.
Developing Engineering Notebooks contain little detail, will have few drawings, and will not be a complete record of the design process. To save Judges’ time, the Engineering Notebook Rubric will not be completed for these teams. However, all Engineering Notebooks should be retained until the end of judging deliberations.
If it is unclear whether a notebook should be categorized as Developing or Fully Developed, either another Judge can help make that determination, or the notebook should be given the benefit of the doubt and scored using the rubric.
Fully Developed Engineering Notebooks contain great detail, and will include detailed drawings, tests and test results, solutions to problems the team encountered, and will be a complete record of the design process. Notebook attributes for Fully Developed notebooks will be scored as Emerging, Proficient, and Expert on the Engineering Notebook Rubric.
Step 2: Complete Engineering Notebook Rubric
Fully Developed notebooks will be scored and ranked using the Engineering Notebook Rubric. Roughly the top 10 or top 20% of Fully Developed notebooks, (whichever is greater) will be in consideration for the Design, Excellence and Innovate awards. They may be initially ranked according to their rubric scores, then be re-ranked according to further qualitative evaluation by Judges.
Judges should read through each notebook as the rubric is scored. There will likely not be enough time to do a full page-by-page close reading, so Judges should form overall impressions and use focused read-throughs for different criteria to generate an accurate score. If time and personnel permits, two or more Judges may wish to independently score each notebook. Finalist notebooks may be scored by an even larger panel of Judges.
Continue to the next section, Guide to Judging: Team Interviews