Research Presentation Template

Introduction

The objective of the “Research Presentation” is to show your understanding of the project and mission objectives,  the work that has been accomplished (previous generation robots, or web research), and the work that lays ahead. Demonstrating your understanding of the project, includes assurance that you are pursuing solutions for the right problems. The ultimate result that we are hoping for from this exercise is that your group will be able to identify what needs to be done for developing your design (what to research, what to experiment on, etc). With that in mind, the format for the research presentation is listed below.

1. Title Slide with position and name of team members

2. Project Objectives / Mission Profile

    • What is the goal that your project is trying to achieve by the end of the semester? Is it a specific subset of the original program/project objective described from previous semesters? Provide a clear explanation to distinguish the two.
    • What is the mission to execute on the day of the final? IE following an obstacle course, being able to navigate the maze, playing a game, etc.
    • Example: S’18 Project and Mission Objectives

The purpose of this section is to ensure that the customer and the team are in agreement with what is being created. If there are any disagreements, they will be cleared up from the discussion following this.

 

3. Review of previous material available on Arxterra. (IF APPLICABLE)

    • Summary of evaluation of blog posts and documentation from previous generations. Highlight a couple of things that you found useful for your design process. IE Motor experiment for RobotX from S’17 explains the correct way to test the characteristics of the motor and will speed up how we test our design.
    • Clearly indicate the name of the person who evaluated the material that is being shown.

The purpose of this section is to not just reiterate the details of what previous semesters have done. You can provide a very brief summary / introduction to what was done but the focus should be on what exactly was useful for you. Did it point out any problems to consider or solutions that your project can use? For example, Blog Post X provides the software they used and would be our starting point for controlling the robot that we can improve on.

 

4. Present the relevant material that was found from online searches

    • Indicate what the topic/problem that was being researched. IE looking at all possible designs for a BiPed robot.
    • Highlight the most important details about what was discovered and how it helps move your design forward.
    • Clearly indicate the name of the person that performed the research for the material being shown

 

5. Discuss what the next steps to take might be.

    • Present what topics are missing or need additional research.
    • Discuss questions or problems discovered during your research that need to be answered. IE How would we power a status LED used to indicate if the solar panel is operating properly.
    • Propose tasks to be added for the TargetProcess schedule. Define the first task to be added to your schedule for each team member to accomplish. Assume one (1) week to accomplish this task.
      • For example, the Project manager shall start a draft of the Level 1 Project Requirements (performance) based on the approved mission profile.
      • MST shall draft the System Block diagram. Based on the system block diagram and TRC WBS, the MST engineer will draft the project Product Breakdown Structure (PBS).
      • E&C, from previous weeks research, will draft a list of candidate sensors and actuator (motors and servos), along with a list of experiments needed to answer research questions.
      • Manufacturing, from previous weeks research, defines what elements of the project will need to be prototyped to help answer research questions.

 

Please make sure to keep the presentation within 20 to 30 minutes.

Remember to submit the presentation (or link to it) on BeachBoard before class starts on the day it is due.

If the amount of material to present causes your presentation to go over the time limit, do not exclude those slides. Keep them as additional slides at the end for us to review with only the most important details being a part of the main presentation (also known as “putting them in the appendix”). We would like to see everything that the project members have been researching, even if we do not have time in class to go over all of them.