Notebooking

I can’t notebook. I can barely read my own handwriting. I’ll turn it over to our best notebookers: Terry from 53A and Chad from 53E. Terry’s notebooks have won numerous awards, he’s the real deal. What is notebooking and documentation? Quoted from Wikipedia (it's a good source despite what school tells you, trust me), documentation is “communicable material that is used to describe, explain or instruct regarding some attributes of an object, system or procedure, such as its parts, assembly, installation, maintenance, and use.” Simply put, you are showing the process taken to reach your final product, simple as that. It’s hard at first, it’s time-consuming, however as we shall explain later, it is very important and applicable not only to VEX, but also in your future careers.

Notebooking in VEX is especially important since it is key to several important awards:

The Design Award
The Excellence Award
To reach these, your notebook needs to:
Highlight what your robot is
Prove that you built it
Dive into the details of how you built it.
Detail how you improved over time

Teresa has compiled a slideshow for use alongside this section.

Basic Rules

(Slides 2-5) You’ll need to follow some basics.

Must be written in blue or black ink
No typing!
If you have the time, as often as possible type an entry, edit it, and then transcribe it.
No white-out
Accept your mistakes, don’t edit your entries to look better.
If you write the wrong word, draw a single line through it and continue
If it’s more than 5 words, sign the error
Plan out your sentences so this doesn’t happen
Plan out large titles on other papers
Don’t cover words with photos, you’ll lose points
Each page is signed and initialed by writer and a witness
Notes are in chronological order and dated
You can’t glue/tape in entries
You can glue/tape in photos or drawings

You’ll also need to spread the work around. Writing is a lot of work. Each person should be contributing to entries, whether it’s through an online document, writing rough drafts, or coming up with ideas or topics to write about. Contributing to notes is also key here.

Your best artists should also do drawings. Drawings are real eye-catchers so they should be good, we’ll talk more in-depth about drawing later. Only 1 person should be writing in the notebook, but there should be a system of other people helping that person out with obtaining material to write about. Optimally, people write into an online document, it’s edited, and then transcribed. But, if you have to go straight to transcribing (you’ll want to do it fast so you don't forget the information).

First Pages

(Slides 6-10) Before we talk about content, we should tell you how your notebook is organized. Depending on the notebook you have, your Table of Contents or Profile will be first. Next, you talk about this year’s game. Lastly, you talk about meetings and tournaments, they’ll be in the next sections. Your first pages give the judges their first impression about your notebook (besides the cover). Make sure these look the way you want them to and contain all the right information.

Profile

Your profile is when you introduce your team. You can add pictures of your team members and provide a more detailed introduction on who they are (keep this simple, 1-2 sentences max). Remember, this part is all about your team, not about your robot. If you really want to stand out to judges, you should place a key in this area. There are 2 color-coded keys. One to denote team members, the other to denote notebook topics. The second is sticky note tabs. These help improve organization and make the layout seem standardized.

Pre-Reveal Reflection

Your pre-reveal reflection talks about what went well and what didn’t in your previous season. This is an important discussion to have as it will help you grow as a team.

Rubric Requirements

(Slides 11-19) This is what gives you points, make sure you have them. This section details an important process, known as the engineering design process (sometimes abbreviated EDP). In the slideshow, please use page 1 of the design award rubric so you know everything judges are looking for in a notebook.

Game Rules

This will be a fairly long and colorful entry. Make sure to note all rules relevant to this game. Having drawings of the field and game elements can be handy as they’re useful for reference.

Brainstorming

Any type of project needs to be brainstormed. Break down each main section of your robot and record pros and cons. Go in-depth into what each part does and how it affects the whole design. The more quality ideas you have here, the better. Use your previous knowledge, what you’ve viewed when other people used the design, or even build the design, to know how a design works (any takeaways). Judges notice new and innovative ideas, so don't be afraid to put something in even if it seems outlandish or out of the box. It is usually these ideas that really improve the quality of your robot and make you stand out as a great team.

Design Selection

You’ll need to select your top 1 or 2 designs so that you have something to fall back on. There are multiple ways to decide.

Democracy - Each person votes for the best design
Rank the Designs - Each person ranks all the designs and assigns points to them. When totaled, whichever has the most is chosen
Lead - Either the leader or lead builder chooses what they think is best
Scoring - The entire team assigns a point value to each design, the highest is chosen
Assigning points can be a great way to see the strengths and weaknesses of a design from several different viewpoints (Example: Mobility, Speed, Power, etc)

Building and Coding

This will take a large portion of your season and your early meetings. Record this chronologically.

Building

Make sure to create a design plan, sketches, commentary on progress, pictures, and any other things that help document the entire process of how you got from start to finish. You’ll want to note what went well, but also what didn’t. How you fix these issues is important. Occasionally, you’ll need to rebuild a subsystem or even the entire robot. You can redo your entire brainstorming session, or look at your previous results. Make sure to record your reasons for rebuilding, how you did it, and what the results were.

Coding

Make sure to take screenshots of code, and especially unique code. By having a special program or coding section, this can really be a great way to stand out to judges who are looking for something different than the rest of the teams. For auton runs, record data and paths taken into the notebook. This will allow judges to see what you did and allow you to improve among these runs. Be sure to show drivetrain code and describe how your drivetrain works. Other subsystems should also be highlighted. You can even draw a controller to show what happens when you press this button. Sensors can improve your robot, and depending on how you write them up, can improve your notebook. Note how the coder coded the sensor, implemented it, and what the difference would be if you didn’t have the sensor.

Driving

There are many times where your driver will have to pick up the controller. They’ll all fall under this category and your notebook should reference all of them.

Testing

After fixing a part or changing the code, you’ll want to see how the robot reacts. Note the change and then have your driver test it a few times. Note the results, quantitative or qualitative. You can also set hypotheses and goals to try and get to a certain point. Note these and any improvements.

Practice

Sometimes your driver just needs seat-time. You can make a point of it to time them to score X amount of points or score an amount of points in X time. These are good quantitative results. You can also discuss different driving strategies. Maybe you’ve noticed that you score your points very fast. This may lead you to play more defense if you know you can score points without much time. If you can’t score fast, maybe you can’t play defense. Maybe you’ve noticed that when you do X your robot responds Y. Depending on what it is, you may have to build a strategy around it or correct it. These are important qualitative results. This will also help your driver know how to improve.

Skills

1 minute, score as many points as you can. Do lots of tests, especially if you prioritize skills during tournaments. Record different tests, their scores, and recent modifications that happened. You might also need to record changes to driving strategies or the robot itself during skills. For example, my team removed a part of our robot for skills so we could complete different objectives. With practice, you’ll find what’s optimal.

Other Requirements

Make sure you repeat your building, coding, and driving/testing so that you can improve your robot. Besides being necessary for a good robot, you need to document these changes for a good notebook. You and other teams should also be able to repeat any changes that you made, even building an exact copy of the entire robot just by reading your notebook. Make it detailed and organized! Buy your notebook first, don’t bind it. Be thorough with the projects you show. Make sure to write each of them out and include them in your table of contents.

Extra Entries

(Slides 20-35) There are some important entries you should make that aren’t necessarily part of the rubric, although they’re necessary to have to compete for awards (but they will greatly increase your chances to get one).

Tournaments

Tournaments are what makes robotics. They can also make your notebook. Try to write these entries as soon as possible since you have the memory fresh in your mind.

Reflection

An overall breakdown of the day. Talk about the tournament and how you did. Anything that was outstanding, good or bad, should be said here.

Match Analysis

This is when you can compare how your robot did in practice vs in theory. Start off with any strategies that you planned. Then talk about the match itself. Make sure to say why you won or lost, whether it be driving skills, robot quality, autonomous, or even luck. Although don’t rely on luck too much. Don't forget to include your scores.

Addressing Problems

Have each person say what they thought went wrong. Many times, this will be connected to your match analysis. Sometimes you have to make a fix in-between matches, include that problem here and the solution in the next section. Here you may also want to mention subsystems that underperformed, or didn’t perform how you thought they would.

Planning Changes

Suggest new solutions to the problems you’ve mentioned. Make sure to think of short-term fixes if you don’t have time. If you do have time, do the long-term fix. You may also want to include different things other teams did, if they outperformed your robot. Other teams’ robots can always be starting points as a reference for improvement.

Long Term Plans

Write about what you need to do and how many meetings it will take. You may not have enough meetings to do everything so you’ll have to explain that you chose the most important. Talk about what you’re going to fix, this could go in its own entry.

Drawing

Drawings are really important because they highlight your notebook. A good drawing can explain a system better than words can. Use a ruler for these as you’ll want straight lines, it goes a long way in helping your drawings look professional. You may also want to use colored pencils or pens. Don’t mess up your drawings, so you may want to practice it on a separate piece of paper first. When you do mess up, try to correct it as much as you can or distinguish the error. Don’t cover up drawings, although if you need to break the rules, don’t let it be found.

Photography

Photos are your primary source for showing off your robot. Be sure to use them well. Take pictures as you build so that judges can see the chronological flow from how you started to the finished product. Also take multiple pictures so that you can choose the best one. You’ll have to stage your photos a bit, so keep that in mind. Make sure to get sharp and clear photos that have good lighting. When printing them out, it is recommended to use the schools’ printers since they can produce very vibrant pictures (seeing it firsthand, there is a noticeable difference)

Code Inclusion

Code is really important to add since it shows that you’re actually programming your robot. You’ll want to add screenshots as soon as you have them. You may even want to add pseudocode before you start coding. Make sure you show any edits to your code and any unique parts that you have.

Digital Notebooking

Final Tips

(Slides 36-37) Keep improving, good luck!