Notebooking & Documentation

Page by Samuel Yao (ISB) & George Xu (ISB)

Why Notebook?

The Engineering Design Notebook is arguably the most significant component in the judging process and a team's documentation. Not only does it set up the judge interview(s) during any given tournament and is a major deciding factor in almost all judged awards, but it is also a team organization tool that can be used to track the progress and planning of any team. However, at the same time, it is an aspect that is often ignored or neglected by many teams.

Teams should focus on their notebook, ensuring that adequate time is given for documentation. Whether as a means of reflection, organization or planning, the design notebook is an important part of competing in V5RC and VIQRC and an essential part of any tournament.

What Makes a Good Notebook?

Mediocre notebooks document their progress, like a diary, but good notebooks go beyond this by incorporating reflection and sufficient planning in addition to the extensive content showing the team's design process of the robot. A rule of thumb is that a good design notebook will allow any reader, even one who isn't fully familiar with VEX, to recreate a team's robot and code.

All fully-developed notebooks will be graded by the Engineering Notebook Rubric (as seen in the Guide to Judging) to rank the design of teams quantitatively.

While most competitions (and typically all Chinese tournaments) require a paper-based notebook, it is possible to write the notebook online and print it out prior to leaving for the competition. It is recommended to use a shared notebook, such as Notion, which we used to great effect, where it is easy to format and convert into printable forms. It is also more useful for finding specific topics that need reworking and standardizing page designs is easier on these online tools compared to writing by hand or working on tools like Word or Google Docs.