Maintain a Team Engineering Design Notebook

1. Maintain a Team Engineering Design Notebook Image retrieved from http://appsci.queensu.ca/courses/APSC381/images/dilbert2007092116393.jpg on 11/30/2010.

2. Maintain a Team Engineering Design Notebook • Performance Objective: Given a VEX Robotics Challenge, maintain a team engineering notebook that contains all material outlined in the lesson. • Enabling Objectives: • explain the purpose of an engineering design notebook • list the items that should be in an engineering design notebook • explain when entries should be made in an engineering design notebook • explain when an engineering notebook should be finished

3. Engineering Design Notebook • The purpose of an engineering design notebook is to provide documentation for the teams: • Thought process • Activities • Ideas • Sketches and other graphic representations of the design process

4. Engineering Design Notebook • An engineering design notebook is also used to provide a chronological record of: • Notes • Research • Sketches • Journal Entries • Forms and extraneous information

5. Guidelines for an Engineering Design Notebook An engineering design notebook should be started when a project is started The notebook should not be finished until the project is over

6. Guidelines for an Engineering Design Notebook On the front of the notebook enter the project title, your name and other information needed to return the notebook to you in case it is lost Keep a table of contents at the front of the notebook

7. Guidelines for an Engineering Design Notebook • Design notebooks do not have to be neat but they must be legible • Do not be overly concerned with neatness at the expense of recording everything as it happens • Do not crowd the materials on the pages • Make your entries at the time you do the work • Include all results and learned information whether favorable or unfavorable. • Include all information even if you do not fully understand it at the time of entry

8. Guidelines for an Engineering Design Notebook • If you make errors, just cross them out with an X or a single line • Do not mark through anything so that it can not be read • Do not erase anything • Never tear a page out of the notebook • All data must be in their original form (calculations, charts, pictures, sketches on scrap paper, etc.)

9. Guidelines for an Engineering Design Notebook • Rough drawings should be done directly in the notebook • More careful drawings such as computer-generated plots should be made and entered in the book • Information on loose sheets of paper should be entered into the notebook by: • Taping the loose paper to the next available blank page in the notebook • Taping each corner of the loose paper

10. Guidelines for an Engineering Design Notebook Information that can be retrieved easily (such as information from VEX) should not be entered into the notebook Enter only the needed information and the location and the location of the information in case you must retrieve it again.

12. Resources This presentation was put together using the following resource: http://www.coe.uga.edu/engineer/materials/engr_notebook.pdf