Engineering Design

Proposals and Oral Presentations

Created by Bing C. Wang

Modified by John A. Chandy

Engineering Design

Introduction

• Communication is key to– Manage your project

– Getting your project funded

– Sell the merits of your project

• Communication skills required– Oral presentations

– Written proposals

Engineering Design

Outline

• Oral Presentation– Know your audience

– Organization and Focus

– Presentation Style

– Time Management

• Proposals– Know your audience

– Proposal requirements

– Proposal structure

Engineering Design

Oral Presentation: Know your audience

• Clearly identify the audience’s depth of knowledge– Do not derive semiconductor physics to investment

bankers– Do show fundamental understanding of engineering to

whoever is giving the grades !

• Clearly identify the audience’s interests– Investment Bankers want to make $$$$– Your professors want to make sure you understand

engineering– Everyone likes to be entertained!

Engineering Design

Know your audience

• Do research on your audience.• What does the audience want to hear??• Venture Capitalists?

– How you’re going to make them money• Naval Research Managers?

– How you’re going to improve their ships’ capability to communicate

Engineering Design

Outline

• Oral Presentation– Know your audience

– Organization and Focus

– Presentation Style

– Have fun! Enthusiasm is contagious

• Proposals– Know your audience

– Proposal requirements

– Proposal structure

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FOCUS

• What is the point? Why am I here?– oral presentations

• For long talk, can lose audience easy– Avoid lengthy equations

• Unavoidable in most ECE lectures

– A picture is worth a thousand words

– NOT, a picture with a thousand words

Too Many Details for most talks

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Focus

• Remind audience of important points.

• Detailed Technical figures may be unavoidable in engineering presentations

• If detailed picture is absolutely necessary, emphasize important details visually

Conditions Important!

T=25C

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Organization: Provide outline of talk

• Oral Presentation– Know your audience

– Organization and Focus

– Presentation Style

– Time Management

• Proposals– Know your audience

– Proposal requirements

– Proposal structure

Engineering Design

Organization

• Easy for audience to lose big picture

• Get lost in details• Useful tip: redisplay the

talk outline for each topic

• Highlight present topic• Remind audience the

organization of the talk

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Organization: Basic Structure

• Start with Introduction– Motivations– Why is this interesting

• Provide outline of the talk– Can be redisplayed to show topic progression

• Background material as needed• Your new ideas

– New and better ways to do …….ship2ship communications, make $$$$, lose weight, etc

• Defend your ideas– Examples are helpful

• Conclusion

Engineering Design

Organization

• Powerpoint Rules– Keep it simple

• Cut clutter

• At the most two font families

• No more than one or two charts or figures per slide

– 666 rule• 6 words per bullet

• 6 bullets per page

• 6 word slides in a row

– Be consistent

Engineering Design

Organization

• Powerpoint Sins (Joseph Sommerville, http://entrepreneurs.about.com/cs/marketing/a/7sinsofppt.htm)– Slide Transitions and Sound Effects

– Standard clipart

– Presentation templates

– Text-Heavy slides

– Text and images are too small

– Reading the slides

– Faith in technology

Engineering Design

Outline

• Oral Presentation– Know your audience

– Organization and Focus

– Presentation Style

– Time Management

• Proposals– Know your audience

– Proposal requirements

– Proposal structure

Engineering Design

Talk to the audience

• Obtain and maintain interest– Make eye contact with people in different parts of the

room– Use examples– “We will build an optical communication network

using dense wavelength division multiplexing with polarization division multiplexing to transmit Terabit bandwidth telecommunication signals” BORING!

– “Doesn’t it drive you nuts when it takes you 20 minutes to download the DOOM3 trial version?”

– “We will build a network that will download it in 10 seconds using optical fiber!”

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Dress Code

• Depends on the setting• Conferences can range from shorts/t-shirts to suits

– Find out ahead of time what the prevailing dress code is– Always err to the more conservative– At a minimum - dress slacks and dress shirt

• Proposals– Usually suits - at a minimum blazer with tie

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Humor

• Be appropriate!• Invited talks, lectures, okay to use some

jokes.• People are more awake if they’re laughing• Proposal talks, i.e. asking for money in a

competitive bid, be more serious. • Humor maybe misconstrued as not taking

the task seriously

Engineering Design

Outline

• Oral Presentation– Know your audience

– Organization and Focus

– Presentation Style

– Time Management

• Proposals– Know your audience

– Proposal requirements

– Proposal structure

Engineering Design

Time Management

• First rule of presentations– KNOW HOW MUCH TIME YOU HAVE!!!– Nothing irritates an audience more than a presentation

that runs long - especially if its boring

• Keep a watch or clock easily visible• Know ahead of time which slides you can skip if

you are running long– Skip implementation details– Show results - that’s what impresses people

• Good rule of thumb - 1 to 2 minutes per slide

Engineering Design

Time Management

• Best way to judge time is to practice ahead of time• Do a run through as a team and with your advisor• Practice as if you were doing the actual

presentation– You can catch places where you may not be expressing

the material clearly enough

– Use the notes feature to help you

• Practice enough times so that it is natural– You should be able to know what the next slide is so

you can transition naturally

Engineering Design

Outline

• Oral Presentation– Know your audience

– Organization and Focus

– Presentation Style

– Time Management

• Proposals– Know your audience

– Proposal requirements

– Proposal structure

Engineering Design

Proposal: know your audience

• Research projects– Proposals to government agencies are all peer reviewed.

• National Science Foundation funds 10-15% of submitted proposal

• Other external proposals also undergo competitive reviews by panels or individuals

• Judged on strength of ideas, quality of writing, ability to deliver, and team’s prior record

– Interested in advancement of science and/or engineering

– Need to convince agency your ideas advance science/engineering

– If there is a specific question, ANSWER IT!• $$$ for ways to improve spectral efficiency of optical comm, etc

• So answer HOW you’re going to do that.

Engineering Design

Proposal: know your audience

• High Tech Start-ups– Proposals to Venture Capital firms are reviewed by

firm’s partners• Most venture capital firms fund <1% of proposal• VC firm may hire experts or consultants for due diligence• Judge on strength of team members, market appetite for the

ideas, and quality of ideas

– Interested in making money.• What are the chances of this company going public? How

soon?• What are the chances that a large corporation will buy this

company?

– Need to convince VC that the idea will make money

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Proposal: know your audience• Internal project proposals

– Proposals will be reviewed by various levels of management• Management may or may not be technical• Final project proposal may need sign off from different divisions of

the company including sales, marketing, support, manufacturing, etc.

– Proposal needs to make a business case• Does new project/product align with current business?• Do the projected revenues justify the associated costs of project

development?• Are there available resources within the company to complete the

project? - money, people, equipment, etc.• If pure research, how does it advance the long-term goals of

company?

Engineering Design

Outline

• Oral Presentation– Know your audience

– Organization and Focus

– Presentation Style

– Time Management

• Proposals– Know your audience

– Proposal requirements

– Proposal structure

Engineering Design

Proposal Requirements

• Some proposals have multiple stages– First cut: white paper, or pre-proposal

– Second cut: proposal

– Third cut: on-site presentation

• Page requirement is indication of how much the funding manager wants to read!! If agency require 5 pages, and you write 50 pages. Yours will be read last….if at all!

• Proposals require resumes of applicants– Often not necessary for white papers

• You address very specific questions.

Engineering Design

Proposal Requirements

• Only in school will you get a letter grade, A, B, C, D, F, on your proposal

• Everywhere else, it’s $$$$ or no $$$$• School grades you on basic metrics, i.e.

organization, ideas, preparation, results• Everywhere else, it’s competitive bidding. There

are no B+ or A-. You just won’t get a dime.

Engineering Design

Outline

• Oral Presentation– Know your audience

– Organization and Focus

– Presentation Style

– Time Management

• Proposals– Know your audience

– Proposal requirements

– Proposal structure

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Basic Outline

• Title

• Summary

• Background

• Solution [technical proposal]

• Project phases, timing, milestones

• Budget

• Information about personnel and collaborators

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Introductory Elements

• Attractive but meaningful title [title page typically includes agency to which proposal is submitted; contact point]

• Summary [clear statement of what is proposed]• Background [statement of the problem to be

solved including importance].

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Technical Proposal

• Body of the proposal• Theory [clearly explain relevant theory]• Approach [clearly state your solution]• Preliminary experimental results

– Very helpful!

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Project Plan

• Phases• Timing • Milestones [what are the key intermediate

accomplishments]• Graphical presentation works well here.• Break down the work into modules. Look for a logical

organization. What tasks must be completed before subsequent phases can be undertaken? Which tasks can be done in parallel?

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Budget

• If you can, try to find out what the funding agency is willing to spend

• Typically, funding agencies have detailed instructions on Budget

• Should be reasonable for what you propose to do• Typical categories - Salaries [include indirect costs]

- Equipment- Supplies

- Travel - Administrative - Overhead [40-60% universities, >100% companies]

Engineering Design

Conclusion

• Oral presentations; – know your audience, – organize and focus, and – talk to your audience.

• Proposals for funding - Know the funding agency government or commercial

interest? - Present you case clearly and concisely - Answer the question

- competitive process

Proposal Presentation Schedule• October 7:

– Team 193 Sikorsky "Wireless Instrumentation" - Bonner, Grogan, Rusch, Vold

– Team 194 CT Corsair - Bertrand, Mosch, Sweat, Tartaglino

– Team 176 Physical Inspection Technique - Guerrera, Nesbit, Stevens

– Team 177 Virtual Lab - DiFederico, Tobey, Ward

• October 9:– Team 175 Command and Control of UAV - DeJarnette, Sullivan, Zhang

– Team 184 Coordinated Command and Control of UUV - Domrese, Khare, Maddocks

– Team 195 Autonomous Control of Vehicles - Henry, Wilson, Wood

– Team 185 Underwater Acoustic Communications Security - Grate, Gilbert, King, Samir

– Team 182 Lenze - Aldrich, Huang, Norman, Trombetta

– Team 186 Hardware-in-the-loop Testbed - Eaddy, Gobin, Pence

– Team 187 Hybrid GoKart - Blake, Calkins, Ojha

Engineering Design

Proposal Presentation Schedule– October 14:

• Team 178 UTC Carrier - Heng, Leask, Qeriqi, Raghunathan

• Team 191 iDevices - Dinh, Garrard, Guster, Rizvi

• Team 188 Miniature Near IR Imaging System - Capuano, Dhanakaran, McMenemy, Miller

– October 16:• Team 180 Koffee Karousel - Adamson, Barnett, Duffy, Okafor

• Team 192 Sikorsky "Stand Alone Flight Display System" - Radlbeck, Cai, Hammerman, Wan

• Team 179 Phonon - Crespo, Rowe, Trapp, Ulatowski

• Team 181 Trans-Tek - Meyer, Soto, Williams, Wolff

• Team 183 Qualtech - Farley, Felekey, McLean, Zaborowski

• Team 189 Integrated Thermo-electric Photovoltaic - Wang, Weiss, Xenophontos

• Team 190 Linear Induction Machine - Hackney, Rarey, Yela

Engineering Design