Conceptual Design Review (Presentation)

Time/Date/Place: Tu 02/12/2013 in Cramer 203

The conceptual design presentation is to convey your "design in progress" to your colleagues (technical managers and engineers) for an assessment and feedback. The goals of the presentation are to

• convey and validate your understanding of the problem,
• communicate plan for and progress towards feasible solution,
• show alternative conceptual designs, and
• justify selection of your conceptual design.

The ultimate goal is to agree on a general concept, so the detailed design can be started.

General Guidelines:

• 15-20 minutes in length, 25 minutes total with questions;
• all team members are expected to speak;
• order will be teams 1 through 4;
• a projector is available in the room, but not a computer (decide on computer and test beforehand);
• assume your audience is technically knowledgeable, but not directly aware of the design problem on which you are working;
• present viable options considered for overall design and subsystems giving pros and cons of each;
• dress will be "dressy casual";
• suggested content (actual layout and organization is team's decision):
  1. Title Slide that identifies the project and design team.
  2. Overview Slide that shows the general outline and content of the presentation.
  3. General Description of the project and its purpose at a level anyone can understand.
  4. Problem Statement including requirements, specifications, constraints and assumptions.
  5. Functions Design must Perform focusing on high-level project breakdown and functions (potentially as a block diagram).
  6. Design Alternatives considered to achieve project and functions.
  7. Selected Design for overall project and functions explaining what they are and why they were chosen.
  8. Test Plan for experiments and tests that will verify if project and functions were successful.
  9. Project Plan including highlights of deliverables, tasks, schedule, members' responsibilities, budget and tracking.
  10. Conclusion briefly summarizing presentation with future work (next steps).
  11. Backup Slides with details not appropriate for presentation, but useful as backup or in a handout such as detailed gantt charts, budgets, diagrams, etc.