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SSilicon ilicon PPrairie rairie IInitiative on nitiative on RRobotics in obotics in IInformation nformation TTechnologyechnology

Using an Using an Engineering Engineering

NotebookNotebook

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What IS an Engineering What IS an Engineering Notebook?Notebook?

A “Blow-by-Blow” record of all laboratory procedures and observations

Audience: the engineer Answers the “why” and “how” of the

experiment(s) and measurement(s) May become important legal record Record of failures as well as

successes

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Engineering Notebook EntriesEngineering Notebook Entries Objectives of the project Preliminary analysis Equipment diagram Experimental procedure Data – including proper labeling Graphs – with proper labeling Calculations Results and conclusions Comments for future work

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What an Engineering Notebook What an Engineering Notebook ISN’TISN’T

A notebook is not a report The data from a single notebook

record might be used for several quite different reports

A notebook is not intended to be completed after the work

Don’t use scratch paper. If it’s worth recording, it’s worth putting directly into the notebook

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Observation & Response

Need-to-know Questions

Dialogue Later Reflections

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Dialectic Notebook EntriesDialectic Notebook Entries

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Engineering NotebookEngineering Notebook A significant fraction of engineering

time is used just writing things down in the book.

If it isn’t documented, it didn’t happen.