In-Class Presentations
The in-class presentations should be no more than 10 minutes long,
followed by a brief question and answer period. Each group member
should participate in the presentation. The presentations should be
formal presentations in that they should be well organized and thought
out. You will probably want to use overheads to help convey some of
your points. I suggest that you practice the presentations a few
times so that they will run smoothly in class. You do not have to
dress up for the presentations.
You should start with an introduction of yourselves and your project,
followed by some background about the project. This might include the
context of the project (where it will be used, who will use it, where
it will be manufactured etc), and why the project is necessary. From
there you should present the project definition (what precisely will
your project do, what are the performance specifications, what are the
power requirements etc). This is just one way of organizing what you
should include in your presentation, if you want to present the
material in a different way, that is fine. I realize that you are
still doing research on a lot of the projects, but you should have a
good idea of what your device needs to do, even if you don't yet know
how you are going to do it.
Some Advice on Giving Presentations
Practice the presentation and time it to be sure that you are able to
fit in everything you need. 10 minutes is not that much time, so you
will need to be selective about what you present.
Start off your presentation with the main point. If you wait till
the end, you may lose your audience.
Stay focused on the point of the presentation. Don't spend too
much time on background material. It is great that you did the
research, but the presentation is not about research. Be confident
that your well-informed presentation and handling of questions will
show the background work you have done.
Keep your presentation as concise as possible, don't worry if you
finish in less than ten minutes.
Make sure that your presentation is well-organized. You may want
to include one slide which is an outline of the presentation.
Keep the overhead slides simple (10 - 20 words as a rule of
thumb). Don't put too much information on a single overhead slide. It
is better to have separate slides than to cover part of one up with a
piece of paper.
Use overheads of the same format, it is distracting when a variety
of fonts and orientations are used. You should avoid hand-written
overheads.
Refer to the projected image, rather than reading off the
projector. This allows you to have better eye contact with the
audience.
Practice the presentation as a group and critique each other. Try
to identify irritating speech habits (like, um etc.) and eliminate
them. Time the presentation during practice.
Make sure that you have smooth transitions between speakers.
If you are asked a question to which you don't know the answer, don't
just randomly make things up-- you may get caught. If you feel like
you can give a well-considered answer, that is fine. If not, you
should thank them for the question and say that you will look into it.
Try not to be apologetic or make excuses.
Logistics
I can make overhead slides for you, if you get me the original in
time. I will leave an envelope on my door (1-337) where you can leave
the originals and I will leave the overheads there for you to pick up
(or I will bring them to class).
Everyone will be asked to fill in evaluation forms for all the
presentations.
If you have any conflicts, please let me know as soon as possible so
that I can schedule the presentations accordingly.
This page is maintained by Amy Smith,
mmadinot@mit.edu