Purpose: Drafting & Practicing

You will display your draft slides to the instructors and class for feedback. This activity will prepare you for the in-class presentations.

This presentation allows you to practice oral, visual, and even spatial communication, which are important factors in an engineer’s everyday work. To focus on the content and how it is communicated, everyone will use the presentation template below to practice the slide design techniques emphasized in the first two chapters of Slide Rules.

Framework for Formulating an Engineering Design Opportunity

As we’ve discussed during class, the engineering design process often prompts engineers to jump directly from a problem to a solution. One goal of this course is to slow down that process and address the need to solve a problem. These steps are as follows:

1. “Problem Step. Readers must be made aware of a situation that has bad consequences for them.
2. Need Step. Readers must be made conscious of the need for (and possibility of) remedial action.
3. Solution Step. Readers must visualize the specific actions needed to solve the problem, including their own specific roles in that solution” (Broadhead & WrightLinks to an external site., 1985/1986, p. 82).

In this presentation, you will focus on the problem and need steps. Later in the semester, you and your team will address the solution step in developing a design proposal.

Broadhead & Wright (1985/1986) offer the following questions to flesh out the first two steps, including parenthetical examples:

1.  “What is the background to the problem? That is, what information would someone need to understand the claim that a problem exists? (For example, a company’s product might be manufactured in one area, assembled in another area that has limited space, and then sent to another area to be packaged and shipped.)
2. What is the problem itself? (A conveyor belt keeps breaking down in the final assembly area.)
3. What are the problem’s effects? (The break-down causes delays in all areas of the plant, since the manufacturing area has no place to store parts, and the packaging/shipping department quickly runs out of products to process. Thus, valuable work time is lost, at considerable expense to the company. Furthermore, these delays in manufacturing cause shipping deadlines to be missed, which in turn causes added bookwork in the accounting department and credibility problems for the sales force.)
4. What are the problem’s causes? (The conveyor belt was not designed to carry loads at the speed required by increased demand for the company’s product. Specifically….)
5. What, if anything is being done to solve the problem? Does this create further problems? (Two persons have been assigned to service the conveyor belt every day and to be on stand-by for emergency repairs. This has lessened the frequency of breakdowns but has not prevented them altogether.)
6. Generally speaking, what kind of thing is needed to solve the problem? (Costly delays need to be prevented.)” (p. 81).

Your Tasks

Draft slides for a short, 5 to 8-minute presentation that covers a single design opportunity and its corresponding service ecology. You will be timed, and you will be stopped at 8 minutes.

Demonstrate what you have learned so far from Slide Rules by writing sentence headers and telling a story. Present professionally to your advisors who will evaluate how you frame this design opportunity.

The rubric below guides what to include. Make sure to do the following:

1. Everyone will use the same template for the presentation. Make a copy of these Assertion-Evidence Google SlidesLinks to an external site..
2. Address the problem and need steps described above. Most, if not all, of the above questions can be answered with the insights you’ve gathered so far, including scholarly research. As you illustrate the answers in both your slide deck and your presentation, a user need should start to emerge.
3. Include a concept map of this design opportunity’s service ecology. Be sure to explain this service ecology to the audience, both orally and through a slide build (see especially Chapter 6, “Building Information Incrementally”).

Resources

See the Slide Design Resources page for lectures, readings, and links to create images and slide deck templates.

Submit Presentation Slide Deck

Submit a link to your Google Slides here with commenting access enabled if you desire feedback.

Purpose

This proposal presentation allows the team to practice verbal and visual communication, which are important factors in an engineer’s everyday work. To focus on the content and how it is communicated, everyone will use the presentation template below to practice the slide design techniques emphasized in the first two chapters of Slide Rules.

Your Tasks

Prepare a short, 5-minute team presentation that covers your team’s Design Proposal. Demonstrate what you have learned so far from Slide Rules by writing sentence headers and telling a story. Present professionally to your advisors who will be approving your design project (or not!).

The rubric below guides what to include. Make sure to do the following:

1. Everyone will use the same template for the presentation. Make a copy of these Assertion-Evidence Google SlidesLinks to an external site..
2. Start with background information that shows the need for this particular design based upon the research done so far.
3. Include a problem description, including target users (audience). Remember the pattern suggested by Nielsen Norman GroupLinks to an external site.: [A user] needs [need] in order to accomplish [goal].
4. Describe specific target outcomes (tasks) to complete in order to prototype the design.

Resources

To develop visuals for the presentation, these resources are helpful:

• Icons are available from sources such as Flat Icon, Font Awesome, and the Noun Project
• Apply CRAP design principles

Submit Presentation Slide Deck

Submit a link to your Google Slides here with commenting access enabled if your team desires feedback.