🚧 This documentation is WIP
- Connecting the dots
- The one (wo)man orchestra
- Just in case no one told you: You will never finish
- KISS principle
- Go / No-Go point
- Final Projects examples. The good, the bad and the ugly
- Crafting the final project
You might think at the early stages of the course, that you will not be able to create what you have in mind for your final. This is a normal, because you still haven't connected the dots. It will happen gradually. It will feel like a gravitational force pulling to condense your disperse knowledge, in orbit with no apparent relationship. There is a always a moment in the project when you find out that all the skills that you've learned during the different weeks, start to come closer. At the beginning they form a blurred image of your idea and bit by bit they will become a very precise shape. Connecting the dots is what has led you to the place where you are now.
You will need to be multidisciplinary. You need to be able to learn fast and efficiently. You need to be able to observe. You also need to be an exceptional communicator. You're going to be writing detailed documentation explaining people why things are the way they are and why it should be the way it is. You need to be able to express yourself graphically as well. You should be good at sketching early stage designs on paper. You should be reasonably fluent in 2d and 3D design or some other tool for expressing yourself graphically. You need to be a little bit of a developer and, kind of a marketing person as well. Because you're always having to sell the thing that you're offering.
Advice: During the weeks, don't waste your precious, short time. Learn as much as you can.
From the very beginning of the project, you have to be aware that there is no way you're going to be able to get everything done. No matter how small the project seems, no matter how much time you have. You are never going to get done what you though you were going to get done at the beginning. Ever.
Learn by doing: In front of the mirror, repeat 10 times every morning: I will never finish my final project
And you have to know from the beginning what is important and what is not. What is the goal of this project? What is the one thing that it has to do or it won't be successful? And recognize that you may have to let just about everything else slide. So you've got to set your priorities very early.
Learn by doing: What is the one -and only one- thing that the project has to do to be successful? Set your priorities and enjoy crossing them out as times gets close to zero.
That lead us to the next point:
There is something that I didn't even realize when I started looking for final project ideas. And I think this is true for most people. Every awesome final project that I had seen was simple. Very simple.
The KISS principle will help you when you start freaking out with ridiculous and useless ideas of final projects that no one would ever need.
There are people who know what final project they will do from the very beginning. There are some other people who don't. And they keep not knowing what to do for long time. That is fine, and exciting. Just, be aware that there is a point in time, called the Go / No-Go point. This point marks the limit when you have to decide what to do. For an average project, I would locate it 3 to 4 weeks from the presentation day. Because if you pass this point, and you still haven't decided what to do, you are probably not going to make it.
A good final project is simple, serves a meaningful and clear purpose and it is beautifully crafted. Don't get me wrong with the simplicity. It might be extremely complex inside, but it works so smooth and integrated that it feels simple and natural. Let's point some of them.
The bad final project is useless, overcomplicated and has no meaning, not even for its creator. Most of the times, it's even expensive. You will obtain a bad final project when your starting point is an inexistent problem or necessity. But also when you try to add extra functionality or decorations that no one requires. If you can't explain your final project in one sentence you probably have a bad final project. Let's point to some examples.
Normally bad final projects never end up working. Statistically, if they ever show some output, it will be random.
The ugly final project is just... ugly. Horrible. It is true that beauty is not universal. But the ugly final project holds a consensus. Bad crafted, poorly designed. Let's see some examples.
Crafting your portfolio and your project is more important than you think. You are delivering a public document that will be read by many people. People that you don't even imagine. They know nothing about you. The only way they have to form an opinion about you is by reading your documentation. Your work reflects your personality. If your site is a mess, you are a mess. If it contains typos, you are careless. If the pictures are bad lit, deformed or poorly composed, you don't pay attention to details. If you waste, you are wasteful. Don't let people assume those things about you. Craft your work carefully.
Documenting a project differs slightly from how you document your weekly assignments. So far your style has been similar to narrating your journey in a sort of diary. It would be interesting that you also keep a journal of the progress, failures and successes of your final project (like a making of page). But this is not what people are expecting to find. They are trying to replicate your project. The information they would like to find is:
- Goal of the project
- Brief story of the idea. The principles or theory behind
- Who has done or attempted it beforehand. You should show your research here
- The different fabrication processes that you have followed. Include as much detail as you captured
- Bill of Materials (BOM)
- The assembly process of the different components
- The testing and programming
- The final result as you are delivering
- Future opportunities of improvements and TODO
You should carefully organize and format all this information with a table of contents (TOC), headers and all the techniques you have at your fingertips. Do not just dump all the information in an endless page. Keep it neat and elegant, easy to read and pleasant to the eye.
There is only one secret about public presentations. Rehearse, rehearse and rehearse. Some people can do a good presentation without rehearsing. But that requires years of experience in public speaking and interviews. You might think you can do this as well, because you did a couple of tests and all went flawless. But let me tell you something, when you are in front of a camera and 500 people are looking at you, it is different. Here you are some tips that can help you present like a professional:
- Partition the time you have been allocated. The most frequent mistake is exceeding the time. Decide beforehand how much time you will use for introducing yourself, how much for explaining the functionality of your project (supply-time management). Partitioning time will help you stay on track.
- Write a script of what you are going to say. Select carefully your words and your style. It is a spoken presentation, it should not sound unnatural when you say it. Since you know how much time you can spend on each section you can reduce of extend the length of your exposure.
- Record an audio of your presentation, reading at a normal pace. Not too fast, not to slow. Do not make it monotone. Make pauses when they are needed, emphasize when is required. When you are happy with the result memorize it. Play the audio in loop mode and just listen to it over and over, hundreds of times. Keep listening to it until you can reproduce it, changing the order, the intonation and the pace at your will. At that point you master the presentation