Information
and Instructions for Presenters of Candidate Projects
Project "Pitchers",
Thank you once again for your
willingness to participate in the Stanford Course: Perspectives in Assistive
Technology and pitch your project suggestion to the class on Thursday,
January 14th.
Requirements for project
suggestions: Please review the requirements
for project ideas.
Class session: The class will be
held online via Zoom. The link will be emailed to you before the event.
Class time:
- Please plan to login to the Zoom
session by 4:15pm for setup. Give yourself extra time in case you
experience difficulties getting connected.
- The class session will begin
promptly at 4:30pm and will end at approximately
5:50pm.
- Please plan to stick around after
all the project pitches for students to ask you specific questions. This
interaction time will help the students fully understand your project
suggestion and decide which project to pursue.
- The order of presentation will
be listed here. Let me know by email if you
will be unable to connect or call me at 650/892-4464
Presentation
logistics:
- You are welcome to screen share a
PowerPoint presentation or a short video if you think your pitch would benefit
from the display of a video, a few images, or text. Please email the file to me
Tuesday, January 12th as a
backup.
- Your pitch will be recorded and
posted on YouTube.
Presentation
suggestions:
- Your pitch must be no longer than three minutes - this will be strictly
enforced to give time for every project to be presented.
- Present the most important
information at the beginning of your pitch to prevent having that information
cut off.
- Be short and concise.
- Practice your pitch for
timing.
- The objective of your pitch is to
interest students in taking on your project.
- Assume students have already read
your project description, so do not merely restate it.
- The overall framework for your pitch
is:
- User: Identify the user or user group
- Context: Describe the context or situation in which the problem
exists
- Problem: Provide an example incident that calls for a new
device
- Solution: Show how the user or user group would use the new
device
- Outcome: Describe the happy outcome for the user or user
group
- Pitch checklist:
- Introduce yourself
- Name your facility or organization
- State your role in the facility or
organization
- Give a very brief background of the population and/or
impairment addressed by your project suggestion
- Identify the problem or challenge
- Illustrate examples of the problem in a
slide
- Show images in slides as it is difficult for students
to see anything that you hold up
- List the prototype's desired operational features and
specifications
- Describe what the prototype device should do, but not
how it should be designed (the student team will come up with a creative
solution)
- Suggest design concepts / alternatives
- Provide any additional information such as
weblinks
- Mention the skills that are needed to fabricate the
prototype: mechanical, electronic, computer, programming - so the students will
be able to judge if it is an appropriate project for them to
undertake.
- Specify what resources, expertise, and involvement you
will be able to provide
- Bring along any prior prototypes you might have to show
to students - after all the pitches have been presented - not during your
pitch
- Prepare to provide more project details and answer
questions at the end of the class - after all the pitches have been
presented - not during your pitch
- Your pitch should not be a
scientific presentation.
- Avoid highly technical engineering,
medical terms, and abbreviations.
- Please do not overwhelm the students
with technical details.
- Communicate they can successfully
pursue the assistive technology project that you have suggested.
Audience:
- The audience will include Stanford
engineering students (mostly mechanical engineering) and individuals from the
greater Stanford community (perhaps as many as 50 people total).
- There may be several students who
arrive late or have to leave early due to other class committments.
Video pitch:
- If you are unable to present your
project(s) in class, you can alternately create a short video pitch (not longer
than three minutes). Upload the video to YouTube and send me the url so I can
play it in class.
Class website:
Please contact me if you have any
questions. Thank you again,
- Dave Jaffe
- 650/892-4464 cell
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