Using the Engineering Notebook and Designing Lesson 05

OBJECTIVES FOR TODAY By the end of this lesson you will be able to: Organise and begin to make use of your Engineering Notebook. Create a final design sketch to communicate your ideas for your robot.

LESSON 05 STARTER – HOMEWORK REVIEW Last lesson you were asked to produce a set of initial design sketches for your robot. In your groups each person now spends one minute showing and explaining their ideas to their team. What ideas can you take forward to your team’s final design?

ENGINEERING NOTEBOOK The Engineering Notebook is an important part of your VEX project and will be especially useful to you when meeting the design brief and preparing your project presentation. Your team notebook should contain: All design sketches and drawings plus any research that you have completed. Photographs of your robot (both after and during construction). Notes explaining each stage of the design and making process. Notes showing any testing and the results of this. TASK: Organise your team notebook by adding relevant work completed so far and creating headings for the sections listed above.

DESIGN BRIEF Situation: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program. One of the next big projects for NASA is sending a mission to Mars to explore and/or collect scientific information and samples about the planet. Brief: Using VEX Robotics components and parts available to you, including your existing Clawbot kit, create a robot that could be used on this mission to meet one or several of the needs identified above. You will need to create a prototype of your robot and present it to a panel of experts.

FINAL TEAM DESIGN As a team produce a final design sketch showing your team’s final robot idea. Remember to think about the VEX parts and components that you have available to you (check your kit if unsure). Fully label your design sketches to explain your ideas. You may also wish to show close ups of different sections (eg grabber arm) and show the design from different angles.

MINI PLENARY EVALUATING & IMPROVING YOUR DESIGN What parts of the design brief and your specification does your design meet? How well do you think it does this? Make a list of three changes that you could make to your design to improve it. Produce an improved presentation drawing of your robot with these changes made. If you have time you can begin making your final robot from your VEX kit. Something to think about: Try to make sure that you use detailed labels and notes to explain exactly what your robot will do, how it will work and what VEX components it will use. Record these in your notebook.