Presenting a Robotics Project

[Schlayer]

   I'm currently working on an ongoing robot project which will likely be finished in a month or so, but I need to present it and what it can do as well as somehow present the actual work I've done on the bot. I'm not totally sure how to do this since for me to talk about it, the people I'm presenting to would have no idea what I'm talking about . I need a way to explain the design process in non technical terms, something I'm not too great at. I also am not sure what else to do besides take pictures and videos for progress reports. Any suggestions on how to organize the presentation would be appreciated. I also plan on making the bot run some kind of routine, possibly partly radio controlled and partly autonomous, driving it around a relatively open space, but explaining in non-technical terms how it operates (like, using information form a distance sensor versus pre-programmed signals to motor and servo). If anyone could offer advice for this, that would be greatly appreciated

[Ibaeni]

I'm in a similar situation. I'm working on my senior project building a quadcopter. You can check out the links in my signature if you're interested. The biggest part of the class is our final presentation. We've had several presentations throughout the year. Although we're speaking to mostly engineering type students, we have to make our presentation as easy to understand as possible. I would suggest break your project up into its different components (i.e. mechanics, electronics, software). A broad format for the presentation would be somewhere along the lines of project overview, initial plans, research, then explain the build process, then demonstrate the final project. Explaining some of the pitfalls you encountered could also be helpful.

[bdeuell]

use lots of pictures...

for how things work keep it high level, you can use flow charts and such, these sensors go to the microcontroller it makes a map of its environment it finds a path to its destination... or whatever your robot does/is capable of.

if you are going to have the robot physically there definitely run it in your presentation. you could let someone control the te robot and offer other viewers to try it after the presentation. show of the different capabilities maybe couple the robot demo the different parts of the presentation as you go through it. the robot will engage peoples attention more than anything else...make sure everyone can see it tho.

unfortunately unless you are speaking to other robot builders nobody will know how much work it really takes to build one.

[mklrobo]

  Hello!
I would recommend using Microsoft's PowerPoint, in their office package.
The software is straightforward, and the learning curve is not fatal.
Many corporate presentations have been done on this, so it may be to your
advantage to use it. You might be able to have a screen on the robot to
present a powerpoint presentation, explaining the robot itself.(?)
Good Luck!   

[Schlayer]

@Ibaeni > My project is also a senior project, though unfortunately my school is just a typical high school, so nobody reviewing the project will know what I'm talking about.Your suggestions do sound helpful, and I was planning to break it up somewhat. I'm not totally sure what exactly I'm going to program it to do yet so software will need to wait for a bit, but I can definitely separate those aspects of it. Thanks!

@bdeuell > A flow chart is an excellent idea! I hadn't really thought of that, I can definitely try and work something like that out. I'll probably make people interact with the robot's sensors to make it do stuff, I'm not super comfortable with handing the radio controller over to a reviewer however. My brother built a state competition winning robot operated with the transmitter I used for my prototype car, and even he managed to crash it into our garage XD. The final version being as powerful as it should be, I'm not so sure about relinquishing all control, but I can probably make an interactive robot program That's a great suggestion, thank you!

@mklrobo > Like probably every high school-er in America, I'm rather familiar with PowerPoint and the whole Office suite . Because of that, I was hoping to do something a bit more original like what bdeuell suggested, but I may use a PPT as my background graphics/video section of the presentation. Thanks to you too!

I'm still open to other suggestions, if anyone else has more awesome ideas!