(excerpted from the June 2024 update to the official Guide to Judging)
The Engineering Notebook serves as a useful tool for the team in the current season, a reference for future teams who may use past notebooks as a resource for solving future design challenges, and as a document that illustrates the team’s journey throughout the season. A well-executed Engineering Notebook will be useful and readable by students and outside observers such as Judges. Teams should choose a notebook format and system to organize content that best suits their circumstances. The Engineering Notebook is not intended to exist primarily as a “presentation piece” for judges.
The Engineering Notebook, as well as the processes students follow to create it, should be in alignment with the REC Foundation’s Student-Centered Policy and Code of Conduct. Templates for notebook entries can be a useful tool to help guide (particularly younger) students as they document their process. However, the end goal should be for students to independently organize and create notebook content. It is never acceptable for adults to contribute materially to the students’ notebook. Adult involvement including adding content, excessive guidance or direction, “cleaning up” documentation (as an example, an adult rewriting a notebook entry for a student with difficult to read handwriting), or organizing notebook content, is not in alignment with the REC Foundation Student-Centered Policy. A significant part of the educational value of the Engineering Notebook is for students to have an opportunity to practice written communication skills, which includes collaboration between students on the team, organizing and synthesizing ideas, and summarizing activities and actions.
It is required that teams abide by the principles of academic honesty in their Engineering Notebook, which includes citing and crediting materials and ideas that are not their own. If students find information that is helpful for their design development from any outside source, be it a website, book, video, or another individual/team, they should properly credit the source of that information and explain how they are using that information in their design process. They should not attempt to claim outside information as their own original work. Misrepresentation of student work is considered a violation of the REC Foundation Code of Conduct as well as the game manual.
Teams from the same organization that submit notebooks with common content make it extremely difficult for the content to be verified as being representative of the students on each individual team, and may be interpreted as misrepresentation of student work. Similarly, student programmers who make use of code libraries should cite their sources, explain what they changed and what they utilized, and ensure that they understand the programming they are using. Students should avoid using programs or code that are beyond their ability to create and explain independently.
The use of artificial intelligence (AI) programs or tools to generate or organize Engineering Notebook content or programming code is also contrary to the REC Foundation Student-Centered Policy and Code of Conduct. What AI tools are able to produce from prompts or from building on existing materials does not genuinely represent the skill level of the team utilizing these tools. REC Foundation programs offer opportunities to learn a variety of technical, organizational, and interpersonal skills. Not all students will have the same levels of competence at these skills, but all students will benefit from the practice and application of those skills as a part of the engineering design process, of which the Engineering Notebook is a significant part. The misuse of AI tools, similar to non-student-centered adult involvement, takes opportunities away from students to gain experience at practicing core communication, organizational, independent inquiry, and decision-making skills.
If judges become aware of academic dishonesty in a team’s notebook, or of violations of the Student-Centered or Code of Conduct policies, those concerns should be escalated to the Judge Advisor. This may result in the removal of the offending team from Judged Awards at that event, and potentially further actions in accordance with the REC Foundation Code of Conduct process.