51:085 / 51:178 Biomedical Engineering Senior Design
Final Talk Guidelines

Administrative Details:

• Because there are so many presentations, we need to split the presentations across several days.   Once it is finalized, the presentation schedule will be posted here.

• Each group will be limited to 8 minutes of speaking time.   A portion of grade will depend on you filling that time efficiently (don't make your presentation too short or too long).

• There isn't much time for fiddling with the computer between presentations.  To make things go smoothly, each group must provide to me, by noon on the day they are scheduled to speak, a copy of their powerpoint presentation on floppy or CDROM (I don't have a zip disk).   I will put all of the presentations onto one disk and bring it to the classroom.

What to cover in your talk:

You should treat this as another chance to "sell" your project to a technical audience.   Every talk should cover background/significance, deliverables, validation/testing plan, and a timeline for spring tasks.  For "product" or "device" projects, cover the key requirements and describe an initial design.  For "research" projects, describe hypothesis, specific aims, and methods.

Every talk should include a discussion of  the main design tasks, and should state explicitly what you will produce at the end of the project.

Since you are limited to only 8 minutes of speaking time, you must carefully choose what to include and what to omit from your talk.

If time permits, we may allow a short question and answer session after each talk.  Be prepared to field one or two questions from the audience.

Videotaping:

Since these are the final project talks for the course, we will be videotaping them.   Please contact me in advance if this is a problem for you.

Tips for a good presentation:

• See the CTC web pagefor tips on preparing an effective oral presentation.

• Start preparing early.  You can't organize a group talk without a lot of planning and practice.

• Determine how to split the speaking responsibilities across your group members.  Ideally, everyone should have a chance to speak.  This will require a lot of practice and coordination with a large group.

• Have an engaging opening slide and/or sentence.  Get the listener's attention right away!

• Practice transitions between speakers.

• Practice your closing sentence.  It is always good to have an obvious closing sentence that signals the end of your talk.

• Practice everything in between your opening sentence and your closing sentence.

• Time your presentation during rehearsal  Running over time is an obvious sign that you didn't practice the talk enough.

• Have someone who is not speaking run the computer for you.   You should concentrate on the audience and your message, not the computer.  If you are a group of just one person, get a friend to run the computer for you.

• Talk to the audience, not to the projector screen.   Eye contact with the audience is critical for keeping them interested.

• Don't read verbatim from your slides.  In fact, the best slides might not even contain complete sentences.   Practice your talk enough so you don't need to read the text from the slides, but instead rely on the slides to guide your presentation.

• Don't read your talk from a sheet of paper.  This is very distracting, makes it hard to maintain eye contact with the audience, and limits your ability to project your voice.  If you need some backup, use index cards with a few key phrases for each slide.

• Avoid using slang and "fillers" such as "uhm" and "you know" during your presentation.

• Formal dress is not required, but you should dress neatly for this presentation.  Extremely sloppy appearance distracts the listener from the main message of your talk.  See the grading summary below for how group appearance factors into your grade.

• Practice using a laser pointer or some other pointing device.   Avoid pointing the laser at your professor.

Grading:

• Everyone in the group will receive the same grade.

• If the talk is judged too short or too long, a 20% penalty will be assessed.  If we have to stop your talk because it runs way over time, a 50% penalty will be assessed.

• About 60% of your grade will be based on the content of your presentation, i.e., did you give a convincing argument for why this project is important and that your group can find a solution?    The remaining 40% percent of the grade will be based on how well you deliver the presentation: group appearance, appropriate speaking style, poise, effective use of the powerpoint slides, abiliity to answer questions, etc.