Senior Project CGS 4916

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Senior Project CGS 4916

• Summer C 2007

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Senior Project - Format of Midterm Presentation
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• This presentation has five PowerPoint slides.
• You have only five minutes for this presentation.

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The Required Slides For Your First Midterm Oral
Presentation Are Listed As Follows

• Cover Overhead. (all items centered)
• Title (large font)
• Name (smaller font)
• CGS 4914 Senior Project (smaller font)
• Date of Talk (smaller font).
• Summary.
• There are three parts to this slide. Use only one
  overhead.
• Motivation Why was this work necessary?
• What motivated you to do it?
• Problem What is the exact problem to be solved?
• Solution What solution do you provide?

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3. Project Plan. How to plan your work schedule
for your project?

• Make a table that can be seen by the audience.
  For example,
• Week 1-2 Literature Search Evaluate
  Literature
• Week 3-4 Begin Project Design
• Complete Design, Order Parts
• Week 5-6 Code user interface and
  libraries
• Week 7-8 Code hardware interface
• Week 9 Integrate software and final
  test
• Week 10 Complete debugging and test
• Week 11 Complete final report for
  advisor
• Week 12 Final oral presentation

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Slides Continued

• 4. Literature Sources.
• Describe the information resources that you have
  used or plan to use.
• 5. Problems Encountered, with Solutions. Outline
  problems encountered to date.
• Specify any solutions that you have developed
  thus far.

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Format of Midterm Presentation 2

• This presentation requires five to seven
  PowerPoint slides.
• You have a total of ten minutes for this
  presentation.

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The Required Slides For The Midterm Oral
Presentation Are Listed As Follows

• Cover Overhead. (all items centered)
• Title (large font)
• Name (smaller font)
• CIS 4914 Senior Project (smaller font)
• Date of Talk (smaller font).
• Summary. There are three parts to this slide. Use
  only one overhead.
• Motivation Why was this work necessary?
• What motivated you to do it?
• Problem What is the exact problem to be solved?
• Solution What solution do you provide?

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Slides Continued

• Literature Search. Include information resources
  that you used, with several bibliographic
  citations.
• Work Performed. Outline the work you performed to
  date.
• Specify any software tools that you created or
  used thus far.
• Work to Complete. What needs to be done to
  complete the project?
• What problems do you foresee?

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Additional Slides

• You may show up to two more slides, which
  include
• 6. a flowchart of your project design
• 7. examples of preliminary software or hardware
  output.
• This helps to establish the validity of your work
  in practice, and provides some material for
  questions after your presentation

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Format of Final Presentation

• This presentation requires a minimum of six
  PowerPoint slides.
• You will be have fifteen (15) minutes for this
  presentation.

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The required slides are listed as follows

• Cover Overhead. (all items centered)
• Title (large font)
• Name (smaller font)
• CIS 4914 Senior Project (smaller font)
• Date of Talk (smaller font).
• 2. Summary. There are three parts to this slide.
  Use only one overhead.
• Motivation Why was this work necessary?
• What motivated you to do it?
• Problem What is the exact problem to be solved?
• Solution What solution do you provide?

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Slides Continued

• Literature Search. Include information resources
  that you used, with several bibliographic
  citations.
• Work Performed. Overhead outlining the work you
  performed. Specify any software tools that you
  created or used here.
• Results. One or more slides outlining your
  results (use figures, tables, graphs, and
  performance statistics where appropriate).

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Slides Continued

• You should include high-level architecture
  diagrams or flowcharts of your hardware or
  software. Be prepared to explain and answer
  questions about the structure and function of
  each module in the flowchart.
• You should also include one or more screen shots
  of your software, and you can link a demo to your
  slides.
• You should not include code (except a short
  example to illustrate a point), header files, or
  datafiles (except short example to illustrate the
  format).

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Slides Continued

• 6. Conclusions and Future Work.
• What conclusions did you derive from this work?
• What exactly did you learn? Include positive and
  negative results.
• What would you do differently if given another
  opportunity?
• What can be done to extend this work?

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Grading Criteria

• The Final Oral presentation will be graded as
  follows
• ------------ GRADE
  -------------- CATEGORY E D
  C B A
• 1. Clarity 1 2 3 4
  5
• 2. Organization 1 2 3 4
  5
• 3. English 1 2 3 4
  5
• 4. Discussion 1 2 3 4
  5
• 5. Persl Appearance 1 2 3
  4 5
• 6. Question/Ans. 1 2 3 4
  5
• MAXIMUM TOTAL POINTS from Course Supervisor
  30 This grade will count as 30 percent of your
  final score.

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General Comments on Presentations

• All overhead information should be centered
  vertically and each overhead should have a title
  in bold typeface.
• Use bullets and short phrases which will serve as
  cues for you during your talk.
• Do not overcrowd slides. Do not make it so that
  the audience must spend any significant amount of
  time reading your slides.
• Talk for the time period allotted to you. Do not
  run over your time allotment. If there are an
  excessive number of questions, then this will
  slow things, but watch your time.
• Estimate your talk to be about 1-2 minutes per
  over-head given only a couple of questions, or 3
  minutes per overhead given more questions during
  the talk.
• Be specific on your overheads or slides. Do not
  include general, pointless, or emotional remarks.
  

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Miscellaneous Guidelines

• Several points to make your project a successful
  experience.
• Get started early, and keep up a steady,
  aggressive pace on the work. Do not wait to the
  last minute especially for the midterm and final
  presentations. This lack of conscientiousness
  will almost guarantee a poor grade from your
  advisor.
• Make each paragraph that you write clear and
  concise. Well written communications are a sign
  of a professional.
• Be sure that your presentations are clear,
  understandable, and comprehensive.
• Pay attention to the allotted time, also to your
  personal appearance and how you present yourself.
  
• Practice, rehearse and practice some more.

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Time Management and Presentation Skills

• Time Management is the art and practice of
  scheduling and using the time available to you
  for Senior Project, so that you can
• Complete your project on time, to meet
  specification
• Build a working prototype (hardware, software, or
  both)
• Complete and submit your final report to your
  advisor, at least a week before your final
  presentation
• Plan and deliver all your presentations
  successfully

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• There are several ways to plan your project
• The one most favored in business and industry
  uses a device called a Gantt chart to plot your
  activities as a function of time.
• (See the Time Management section on the Senior
  Project webpage for more detail.)
• Action Item 1. first block out the time needed
  by
• Breaking Down project tasks into subtasks
• Schedule the subtasks so that you have one or two
  (but no more than three) active at any given time
• Determining dependencies between tasks or
  subtasks and scheduling the dependent ones later
  in the effort.
• Allowing about twice as much time as you think
  you will need for each subtask (to accommodate
  Murphy's Law).

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• Action Item 2 Once you have determined what
  schedule you want to pursue, then you need to
  apply yourself and get the work done.
• Also be sure to pace yourself. This means not
  allowing work to pile up, then walking away from
  it, but getting a more-or-less regular amount of
  work done each day.
• Technical Presentation Skills serve several
  purposes, which include
• Conveying information about your work
• Presenting an image of you as a person and as a
  scientist, engineer, or manager as well as
• Inducing a mindset in your audience that is
  conducive to support of your work.

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• 1) Presenting Information About Your Work
• Promotion of your work is typically realized in
  three ways
• Routine informal communication with colleagues
• Written communications, ranging from software
  documentation, technical notes or memoranda,
  technical reports, user and technical manuals, to
  research papers, book chapters, or books
• Oral presentations or poster presentations
  supported by an oral explanation

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• 2) Presenting an Image of You as a person,
  scientist, engineer, or manager cannot be
  emphasized enough as a tool for promoting your
  work.
• Since your audiences technical background may be
  shaky or nonexistent, you need to present the
  following
• A colloquial ("plain-English") overview of your
  work that is not tinged with negative emotion or
  excessive positive emotion.
• A colloquial overview of prior work from the
  literature, with supporting but not excessive
  technical detail

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• Your approach to solving the problem(s) that you
  previously posed must be targeted to the
  non-technical members of the audience. This is
  known as the KISS method.
• An overview of results helps establish the
  credibility of your work.
• A brief discussion of lessons learned as well as
  planned future work re-enforces credibility.

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• 3) Inducing a Mindset in Your Audience that is
  Conducive to Support of Your Work
• Sell" others on your idea(s), some of which
  might be supported by one or more preliminary
  results.
• Win the confidence of your listeners by
  presenting your work in a simple, honest, and
  believable way
• Present your ideas in a way that supports the
  aims and goals of your employer or supporting
  organization (real or potential)
• Provide supporting literature, theory, and (if
  possible) preliminary results or simulations

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• Personal Appearance is a very important component
  of a technical presentation.
• Appearance of your presentation is also important
  - avoid cluttered slides with small print, large
  numbers of equations per slide, or graphics that
  are loaded with fine detail.
• Good Diction (i.e., clear, understandable
  language) is a must when presenting to any
  audience. Pay attention to your pitch and volume.
• Stance, mannerisms and posture are also very
  important.

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• Sum-up
• Your presentation should be clearly organized,
  with outline slides to orient your listeners.
• Each slide should be uncluttered and should
  convey salient information about the concept
  which is being described.
• Clarity of speech with an acceptable level of
  pitch, volume, and articulation will convince
  your audience that
• you know what you are talking about, because you
  can relate it to their level of understanding
• you know how to relate to them as individuals.
• Lastly, you are expected to give clear answers to
  one or two questions from the audience, in the
  same vein as your presentation.

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IMPORTANT

• Please read the Time Management section on the
  senior Project web page.
• This is required reading.
• The End for now.