Project Presentations

1
Project Presentations

• CPE Design Project Presentation Requirements

2
Opening

• Talk briefly about something that has general
  human interest to draw in the listener
• empathize with the audience
• a joke if your good at it or, better yet,
  something funny or ironic that happened to you in
  connection with the project
• Make sure you paint the big picture early and
  reconnect with it where appropriate

3
Opening (continued)

• Provide a slide that gives an overview of the
  presentation and who will be presenting
• then strive to make transitions between
  presenters seamless
• no further introductions or handoffs
• just a continuation of the presentation without
  missing a beat

4
General Slide Guidelines.

• Use pictures, block diagrams, and graphs,
  avoiding bullets where possible
• Avoid too much detail on any given slide
• Avoid being too fancy with the animation, fonts,
  or colors.

5
Presentation Style

• Initiate audience interaction
• lead them on a mental journey (talk about a
  hypothetical situation that might involve them)
• move (approach the audience to discuss a
  question), but avoid excessive motion or
  distracting mannerisms
• provide materials (hardware, a key slide, but
  avoid distracting handouts)
• ask questions and expect answers
• relate to information that has already been
  presented by others

6
Presentation Style (continued)

• Be spontaneous maintaining good eye contact
  (use no script, know key points you want to make
  and practice physically and mentally making them)
• Practice repeatedly and time your remarks (it
  probably should take longer to prepare a short
  presentation than you think it will)
• Speak loudly
• Continually scan the audience for feedback

7
Presentation Style (continued)

• Make a strong technical presentation, but avoid
  technical jargon and obfuscating detail (no large
  blocks of code or general schematics)
• Let the high-level design issues drive the
  presentation
• Imagine that investors are in your audience and
  you want to sell them on your design ideas
  (project past the prototype)

8
Summary

• Include information along these lines
• what we set out to do (remember that technical
  content is supportive of the project and not the
  project, itself)
• what we did
• what we learned (things that were helpful, things
  that were pitfalls, things that were unexpected
  and how we handled them)
• what we see as avenues to extend the project
• See Evaluation Forms on class Web site