1. Proposals and Oral Presentations
Created by Bing C. Wang
Modified by John A. Chandy
Engineering Design

2. Introduction Communication is key to Communication skills required
Manage your project
Getting your project funded
Sell the merits of your project
Communication skills required
Oral presentations
Written proposals
Engineering Design

3. Outline Oral Presentation Proposals Know your audience
Organization and Focus
Presentation Style
Time Management
Proposals
Proposal requirements
Proposal structure
Engineering Design

4. Oral Presentation: Know your audience
Clearly identify the audience’s depth of knowledge
Do not derive semiconductor physics to investment bankers
Do show fundamental understanding of engineering to whoever is giving the grades !
Clearly identify the audience’s interests
Investment Bankers want to make $$$$
Your professors want to make sure you understand engineering
Everyone likes to be entertained!
Engineering Design

5. Know your audience Do research on your audience.
What does the audience want to hear??
Venture Capitalists?
How you’re going to make them money
Naval Research Managers?
How you’re going to improve their ships’ capability to communicate
Engineering Design

6. Outline Oral Presentation Proposals Know your audience
Organization and Focus
Presentation Style
Have fun! Enthusiasm is contagious
Proposals
Proposal requirements
Proposal structure
Engineering Design

7. FOCUS Too Many Details for most talks
What is the point? Why am I here?
oral presentations
For long talk, can lose audience easy
Avoid lengthy equations
Unavoidable in most ECE lectures
A picture is worth a thousand words
NOT, a picture with a thousand words
Too Many Details for most talks
Engineering Design

8. Focus Remind audience of important points.
Detailed Technical figures may be unavoidable in engineering presentations
If detailed picture is absolutely necessary, emphasize important details visually
Conditions Important!
T=25C
Engineering Design

9. Organization: Provide outline of talk
Oral Presentation
Know your audience
Organization and Focus
Presentation Style
Time Management
Proposals
Proposal requirements
Proposal structure
Engineering Design

10. Organization Easy for audience to lose big picture Get lost in details
Useful tip: redisplay the talk outline for each topic
Highlight present topic
Remind audience the organization of the talk
Engineering Design

11. Organization: Basic Structure
Start with Introduction
Motivations
Why is this interesting
Provide outline of the talk
Can be redisplayed to show topic progression
Background material as needed
Your new ideas
New and better ways to do …….ship2ship communications, make $$$$, lose weight, etc
Defend your ideas
Examples are helpful
Conclusion
Engineering Design

12. Organization Powerpoint Rules Keep it simple 666 rule Be consistent
Cut clutter
At the most two font families
No more than one or two charts or figures per slide
666 rule
6 words per bullet
6 bullets per page
6 word slides in a row
Be consistent
Engineering Design

13. Organization
Powerpoint Sins (Joseph Sommerville,
Slide Transitions and Sound Effects
Standard clipart
Presentation templates
Text-Heavy slides
Text and images are too small
Reading the slides
Faith in technology
Engineering Design

14. Outline Oral Presentation Proposals Know your audience
Organization and Focus
Presentation Style
Time Management
Proposals
Proposal requirements
Proposal structure
Engineering Design

15. Talk to the audience Obtain and maintain interest
Make eye contact with people in different parts of the room
Use examples
“We will build an optical communication network using dense wavelength division multiplexing with polarization division multiplexing to transmit Terabit bandwidth telecommunication signals” BORING!
“Doesn’t it drive you nuts when it takes you 20 minutes to download the DOOM3 trial version?”
“We will build a network that will download it in 10 seconds using optical fiber!”
Engineering Design

16. Dress Code Depends on the setting
Conferences can range from shorts/t-shirts to suits
Find out ahead of time what the prevailing dress code is
Always err to the more conservative
At a minimum - dress slacks and dress shirt
Proposals
Usually suits - at a minimum blazer with tie
Engineering Design

17. Humor Be appropriate! Invited talks, lectures, okay to use some jokes.
People are more awake if they’re laughing
Proposal talks, i.e. asking for money in a competitive bid, be more serious.
Humor maybe misconstrued as not taking the task seriously
Engineering Design

18. Outline Oral Presentation Proposals Know your audience
Organization and Focus
Presentation Style
Time Management
Proposals
Proposal requirements
Proposal structure
Engineering Design

19. Time Management First rule of presentations
KNOW HOW MUCH TIME YOU HAVE!!!
Nothing irritates an audience more than a presentation that runs long - especially if its boring
Keep a watch or clock easily visible
Know ahead of time which slides you can skip if you are running long
Skip implementation details
Show results - that’s what impresses people
Good rule of thumb - 1 to 2 minutes per slide
Engineering Design

20. Time Management Best way to judge time is to practice ahead of time
Do a run through as a team and with your advisor
Practice as if you were doing the actual presentation
You can catch places where you may not be expressing the material clearly enough
Use the notes feature to help you
Practice enough times so that it is natural
You should be able to know what the next slide is so you can transition naturally
Engineering Design

21. Outline Oral Presentation Proposals Know your audience
Organization and Focus
Presentation Style
Time Management
Proposals
Proposal requirements
Proposal structure
Engineering Design

22. Proposal: know your audience
Research projects
Proposals to government agencies are all peer reviewed.
National Science Foundation funds 10-15% of submitted proposal
Other external proposals also undergo competitive reviews by panels or individuals
Judged on strength of ideas, quality of writing, ability to deliver, and team’s prior record
Interested in advancement of science and/or engineering
Need to convince agency your ideas advance science/engineering
If there is a specific question, ANSWER IT!
$$$ for ways to improve spectral efficiency of optical comm, etc
So answer HOW you’re going to do that.
Engineering Design

23. Proposal: know your audience
High Tech Start-ups
Proposals to Venture Capital firms are reviewed by firm’s partners
Most venture capital firms fund <1% of proposal
VC firm may hire experts or consultants for due diligence
Judge on strength of team members, market appetite for the ideas, and quality of ideas
Interested in making money.
What are the chances of this company going public? How soon?
What are the chances that a large corporation will buy this company?
Need to convince VC that the idea will make money
Engineering Design

24. Proposal: know your audience
Internal project proposals
Proposals will be reviewed by various levels of management
Management may or may not be technical
Final project proposal may need sign off from different divisions of the company including sales, marketing, support, manufacturing, etc.
Proposal needs to make a business case
Does new project/product align with current business?
Do the projected revenues justify the associated costs of project development?
Are there available resources within the company to complete the project? - money, people, equipment, etc.
If pure research, how does it advance the long-term goals of company?
Engineering Design

25. Outline Oral Presentation Proposals Know your audience
Organization and Focus
Presentation Style
Time Management
Proposals
Proposal requirements
Proposal structure
Engineering Design

26. Proposal Requirements
Some proposals have multiple stages
First cut: white paper, or pre-proposal
Second cut: proposal
Third cut: on-site presentation
Page requirement is indication of how much the funding manager wants to read!! If agency require 5 pages, and you write 50 pages. Yours will be read last….if at all!
Proposals require resumes of applicants
Often not necessary for white papers
You address very specific questions.
Engineering Design

27. Proposal Requirements
Only in school will you get a letter grade, A, B, C, D, F, on your proposal
Everywhere else, it’s $$$$ or no $$$$
School grades you on basic metrics, i.e. organization, ideas, preparation, results
Everywhere else, it’s competitive bidding. There are no B+ or A-. You just won’t get a dime.
Engineering Design

28. Outline Oral Presentation Proposals Know your audience
Organization and Focus
Presentation Style
Time Management
Proposals
Proposal requirements
Proposal structure
Engineering Design

29. Basic Outline Title Summary Background Solution [technical proposal]
Project phases, timing, milestones
Budget
Information about personnel and collaborators
Engineering Design

30. Introductory Elements
Attractive but meaningful title [title page typically includes agency to which proposal is submitted; contact point]
Summary [clear statement of what is proposed]
Background [statement of the problem to be solved including importance].
Engineering Design

31. Technical Proposal Body of the proposal
Theory [clearly explain relevant theory]
Approach [clearly state your solution]
Preliminary experimental results
Very helpful!
Engineering Design

32. Project Plan Phases Timing
Milestones [what are the key intermediate accomplishments]
Graphical presentation works well here.
Break down the work into modules. Look for a logical organization. What tasks must be completed before subsequent phases can be undertaken? Which tasks can be done in parallel?
Engineering Design

33. Budget
If you can, try to find out what the funding agency is willing to spend
Typically, funding agencies have detailed instructions on Budget
Should be reasonable for what you propose to do
Typical categories
- Salaries [include indirect costs]
- Equipment
- Supplies
- Travel
- Administrative
- Overhead [40-60% universities, >100% companies]
Engineering Design

34. Conclusion Oral presentations; know your audience,
organize and focus, and
talk to your audience.
Proposals for funding
- Know the funding agency government or commercial interest?
- Present you case clearly and concisely
- Answer the question
- competitive process
Announcements: try out web site
Presentations: After the break
Engineering Design

35. Proposal Presentation Schedule
October 7:
Team 193 Sikorsky "Wireless Instrumentation" - Bonner, Grogan, Rusch, Vold
Team 194 CT Corsair - Bertrand, Mosch, Sweat, Tartaglino
Team 176 Physical Inspection Technique - Guerrera, Nesbit, Stevens
Team 177 Virtual Lab - DiFederico, Tobey, Ward
October 9:
Team 175 Command and Control of UAV - DeJarnette, Sullivan, Zhang
Team 184 Coordinated Command and Control of UUV - Domrese, Khare, Maddocks
Team 195 Autonomous Control of Vehicles - Henry, Wilson, Wood
Team 185 Underwater Acoustic Communications Security - Grate, Gilbert, King, Samir
Team 182 Lenze - Aldrich, Huang, Norman, Trombetta
Team 186 Hardware-in-the-loop Testbed - Eaddy, Gobin, Pence
Team 187 Hybrid GoKart - Blake, Calkins, Ojha
Engineering Design

36. Proposal Presentation Schedule
October 14:
Team 178 UTC Carrier - Heng, Leask, Qeriqi, Raghunathan
Team 191 iDevices - Dinh, Garrard, Guster, Rizvi
Team 188 Miniature Near IR Imaging System - Capuano, Dhanakaran, McMenemy, Miller
October 16:
Team 180 Koffee Karousel - Adamson, Barnett, Duffy, Okafor
Team 192 Sikorsky "Stand Alone Flight Display System" - Radlbeck, Cai, Hammerman, Wan
Team 179 Phonon - Crespo, Rowe, Trapp, Ulatowski
Team 181 Trans-Tek - Meyer, Soto, Williams, Wolff
Team 183 Qualtech - Farley, Felekey, McLean, Zaborowski
Team 189 Integrated Thermo-electric Photovoltaic - Wang, Weiss, Xenophontos
Team 190 Linear Induction Machine - Hackney, Rarey, Yela
Engineering Design