Purpose

It is recommended that you keep an engineering notebook for this course.  Many companies require their employees to maintain an engineering notebook, and for this course the purpose is the same; to document your accomplishments, to monitor your progress, to record technical details you are learning, and to record all project related issues and notes. It is not intended for keeping lecture notes. In industry your journal may be called upon as evidence in legal disputes over intellectual property.

Format

• Use a standard bound "composition" book available at the bookstore. 3-ring or spiral bound books are NOT acceptable.  
• The cover must show your name, course and section number, and team logo.
• Every entry in the notebook must be dated and clearly labeled (E.g. status meeting, working meeting, customer meeting, research topic, adoption plans, tool how-to, etc).
• Leave no blank pages. 
• Entries must be handwritten and must be neat and legible, preferably in ink. 
• A secondary objective of the notebook is writing practice; write every entry in your own words.
• Bring the notebook to every meeting you attend related to this class, both lecture and project. 

Content

The notebook must contain, at a minimum:

• Lists of your assigned action items: description, date assigned, date due, & date completed.
  
• Time Logs. Keep these all in one place, either at the front or back of your notebook.
• Weekly status reports. If your team requires you to electronically submit your weekly status report, you may simply print a copy of your electronic version and paste it into your lab notebook.

• Notes on action item work.
• Notes on customer interviews, research, tools and anything else related to the project.
• Notes on lessons learned.
• Summaries of readings (outside of assigned textbook readings).
• Applications of course principles - Describe how you applied something you learned from the text, lecture or elsewhere to a specific aspect in your team project.  One simple way to document this is the classic Plan-Do-Check-Act framework.
• Engineering analyses of alternatives and tradeoffs.

Grading

• Includes all required content (above).
• Understanding of the team process and product.
• Demonstration of initiative and leadership.
• Resourcefulness, insight, and creativity in problem solving.
• Application of software engineering principles from the textbook, lectures, the course web site, and other resouces to moving your team project forward.