Presentations

Aim

You can think of this as a practice at "pitching" to a mixed audience: non-expert industry representatives, area-expert "investors" (the teaching and technical staff) and competitors (your fellow students!). In the 15 minutes available, you should make an informative and engaging case for the particular strengths of your robot and your development process. It might be helpful to imagine your group/team as a start-up company and the robot as your product. Why should the audience invest in you if they want to have a competitive advantage in the robot soccer world?

Practicalities

The final presentation will be in G.07 on the morning of Friday 7th April. Your presentation slides will be preloaded ready for display, so you need to submit these materials to the SDP TA (Kat) no later than 10pm on Thursday 6th April. You will have had an opportunity to have a dress rehearsal of the presentation in G.07 on Thursday 6th April before finalising the content. You will also have an initial chance to practice, and get feedback from your mentor and additional observers, on Wednesday 29th March.

The presentation time will be strictly limited to 15 minutes, and this includes any time for set-up or questions (you should allow time for some questions). You can present as a team, or split your time into two halves for each group. You can have several different presenters, but it is probably not a good idea to have too many; however the entire team should be present to answer questions relevant to the components they have worked on.

When you present on the final day, you must also supply a flyer to the judges. This should be one sheet of A4 paper (you can use both sides and any layout you prefer). You need to print and bring 12 copies to the presentation. The main function is to allow judges to remember your presentation, so make sure the linkage is clear. But don't just print your slides - the flyer should potentially stand alone, i.e., if someone missed your presentation, they should still get a strong sense of the key features of your robot and development process from the flyer.

The presentations will be marked by the judging panel (industry guests and SDP staff), for clarity, coherence, information and ability to answer questions. This will contribute 10% to your final mark on the course.

Advice

Note that advice on communication skills was provided in the Professional Issues course. Specifically you should look at the materials from Mon 17 October (powerpoint) and Mon 31 October (speaking).

Here are some

dos and don'ts.

Return to the course webpage.

Here is last year's winning

presentation.

Return to the course webpage.

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