Purpose:

This is the last lab in the project series. It includes guidelines for the final form of your project report along with guidelines for the 5-10 min presentation you are asked to make about your project.

Why is the 'Brass Ring'?

Historically the brass ring was a prize that you could possibly reach from your horse on the carousel that would entitle you to a free ride. Culturally it has become a way of expressing the best hoped for outcome of a process.

Background:

For the vast majority of you the future will include doing projects for various sponsors or employers. The outcomes of those projects will be shared in a variety of forms. This portion of your project experience is intended to give you some insight into those expectations. For us this will include the final narrative project report (as a pdf), the python notebook (which a future investigator could use to move the project forward), and a short presentation like that you will often be asked to give to your sponsor/employer.

Procedure:  

1) Narrative Final Report: Most of this work is already done through your original project proposal, the reference lab, the spherical report, and other documentation you have been creating as the project has progressed. When you've completed this portion hand your report to someone who cares about you and have them read it. It should feel like a coherent story line to them even if they don't understand the specific engineering or physics. When you look at your python notebook where you have been tracking this project it should have this general form:

The Project: What you decided to investigate and why? What did you hope to learn or explore through this project. This is often a good place to describe the work of others that you borrowed from or that provided guidance for you. This is not where you catalog all the references but is definitely a place you describe important information, tools, and ideas that had meaningful impact on your project.

Initial/Next Efforts: Where did you start? What was the set up for your experiment? What equipment did you get or borrow? What was your experimental set up? How did you execute the experiment? What data did you take (present the data of course)? Some place in these experiments you were asked to demonstrate some python skills either through plotting some of your data or building a simplified physics model your experiment. Don't forget our expectations about extensive and clear comments for your code.

Initial/Next Reflection: Early efforts almost always lead to modifications. What did you learn in those initial experiments that someone who follows in your footsteps could benefit from? What modifications or improvements to the project did you make? Rinse and repeat the previous section and this as needed.

Final Wrap Up: Generally these projects stop because we run out of time during a 10 week class and/or the project got more complicated in a way which stopped our ability to continue progressing. Regardless of how things worked out your project is a success, in my view, if you can articulate some clear learning about the setting you were diligently investigating. This section is where you document and articulate the current status of your project.

Next Steps: If there were time what would be the next steps you would take to move the project forward or seek to understand it more deeply? This demonstrates the you understand the future implications of your project. This is just a paragraph not a whole project proposal.

2) Presentation: Presenting the results of our design or investigation is a common experience in all technical disciplines. There is a theory that COMM 111 and WR 227 build enough skills that this is a no brainer. My experience is that this assumption is NOT warranted. In the beginning your presentations will likely be within the group that is working on the project. If you have strong communication skills you will quickly find yourself presenting to the money folks or the public. This is a good thing and is likely to also be good for your advancement with your employer. Here are some guidelines for your 5-10 min presentation (shorter is better!):

Intro (What and Why): Even if you are sure your audience knows what your project was and why it's interesting this is still the best starting point.

Initial Experiments/Results: Share with your listeners what you did first and what you learned from it. This is the core of your presentation. You can move rapidly through a series of relevant experiments but what is always valuable is to hear the motivation for each successive trial. Keep the connection between the why of the project and the individual experiments/results clear.

Summary: Summarize what you learned from the project and your reccommendations for next steps.

Notebook or Powerpoint: We have become slaves to the idea that a presentation means a set of power point slides. It is more useful to think of a presentation as a set of visual cues that are supplemented with thoughtful commentary from you. Those visual cues can be powerpoint slides but they could also be a set of thoughtfully formatted cells at the end of your project report that you move through.

'Slide' guidelines: Individual 'slides' should limit themselves to 2 or 3 points that can be expressed in less that 20 words total. Plots should fill the frame so your listener can see it clearly as you describe what it means. High points are on the 'slides' and you are adding to them with your commentary (not reading the slide). Generally 1 slide = 1 min. That means this presentation is about 5 'slides' (1 is the intro and 1 is the summary so 3 really). I assure I have violated this guidance in my career and it did not go well!

Deliverables:

1) Assemble your notebooks to create a solid looking FInal Project Report that meets the above expectations and submit to the LMS.

2) Present your project to the class.