Notice for Spring 2025 Teams
Students are expected to continue proper logging of work within their logbooks. Logbooks are necessary for both justification of work completed as well as evidence for any achievements of the team that the sponsoring company should like to protect. All work and its reasoning should be recorded in a logbook and be properly dated and signed by team members. Formatting for logbooks can be found below.
Failure to maintain logbooks in the spring semester will result in a 5% penalty.
ELECOMP Capstone Design
Logbook Format
Logbooks are property of the sponsoring company. All logbooks must be returned to locker #112 in the ELECOMP Capstone Lab by 2 pm on Friday, April 26th, 2025, for evaluation and dispatch to Technical Directors.
You must keep a logbook for your project; these will be provided at the first meeting. If you are working on a team project, each person must keep a logbook. All work on the project should be recorded in the logbook as the work is done. Even your rough calculations and thoughts about how to proceed on the project should be entered. The reader should be able to not only reproduce your work from the logbook, but also should be able to understand why you made certain choices from your comments in the logbook. First, the logbook serves as a record of design as a record of design ideas, design calculations, experimental procedures and data, library research, diagrams, graphs, photographs, lists, phone numbers, addresses, etc. – the “nuts and bolts” – of the project. The logbook is therefore a means of managing the project. Second, the logbook is the primary source for progress reports and other technical documents, such as applications for patents, or papers submitted to a professional society, or proposals for new work. Third, the logbook provides the technical chronology of the project, and thus provides a legal record of work done. This is particularly important when it comes to filing a patent claim, or defending one in court. Fourth, the logbook becomes indispensable when the work you have done is to be continued by someone else. Frequently you will need to refer to work done on past projects, and a well-written logbook can often save you from repeating an experiment or a calculation. You will quickly forget work and ideas, so write them down, in detail. Write your logbook as though:
- You are anticipating that someone else will eventually continue your work.
- It may be needed to back patent priority claims in court.
- One day you will be famous, and your logbooks will be made public. For example, see below an excerpt from the logbook of Walter H. Brattain; used as intellectual evidence for the invention of the transistor.
The format of the logbook is as follows:
- The first 6 pages of the logbook must be left blank as they will be used for a Table of Contents, among other sections. Logging begins on page 7.
- All entries to the logbook must written in blue or black ink, and be dated and signed by yourself and a member of your team at the top of the page/entry. All edits, attachments, and revisions to the logbook must be initialed by yourself. Attachments to the logbook bust be initialed in such a manner that the initial overlaps both the attachment and the page.
- The logbook hour log shall be separated into eight (8) sections: Date, Day of the Week, Start Time, End Time, Hours Worked, Cumulative Hours Worked, Pages, and Comments.
- To orientate the logbook to begin the hour log, begin with the logbook in a standard reading position (Front cover top-facing, with the spine of the book on the left-hand side). Flip the book 180 degrees so that the spine is right facing and the top cover is face down. Rotate the book 90 degrees counter clockwise so the spine is facing forward and the top cover is face down. Open the back cover upwards and the last page will be on the bottom half in a landscape orientation. Logging begins on this page and then continues by turning the page upwards. This will be revisited during the first meeting.
- Provision 2×2 squares for all sections excluding date (using the space of the page) and Comments (using all remaining space). Please see the image below for an example.
- The start and end time are to be entered in 24hr format (00:00 – 23:59) and all entries must be in chronological order.
- Comments are generally 2-3 sentences summarizing the work done. This must be insightful and easy to follow.
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