Project 6 · Week 6 capstone · presented Thu 9 July · after Sessions 11 & 12
Project 6: Design Review Presentation
A 10–12 minute presentation of your design, defended live in the review.
What this is
Make the room trust your design.
The final artifact is you, presenting. Lead with the framing and the decisions, surface your own risks before anyone asks, and defend the trade-offs under live questions. The grade is the reasoning, not the slides.
💡 In plain English
Like presenting a project to a panel, except the panel are engineers. Nobody is grading how pretty your slides are. They're grading whether your choices hold up when someone asks "why not the other way?"
Do this, in order
The steps.
1
Build the spine, not a tourFrame → 2–4 key decisions → risks. Do not walk through every box on the diagram.
2
Open with the problemThirty seconds: what you're building, for whom, and the one number that bounds it.
3
Present each decision as a trade-offThe axis, your choice, and what you gave up. "We chose X over Y because, and we accept Z."
4
Surface your own risksName what you're unsure of before the room does. It builds trust and disarms the hard question.
5
Rehearse the defenseFor each decision, prepare your answer to "why not the obvious alternative?" Practise it out loud.
A 10-minute shape
Time-box the talk.
0:00 · Frame
the problem, the user, the one bounding number
1:00 · Design
one diagram, the data flow in a sentence
3:00 · Decisions
2–4 calls, each as a named trade-off
7:00 · Risks
what you're unsure of, owned out loud
8:30 · Evolution
what changes at 10×, and the trigger
9:30 · Q&A
invite the "why not X?" questions
How it's marked
What good looks like.
✓ Strong submission
Opens with the problem and one number, not a component tour.
Every decision is stated as a trade-off with a "because".
Risks are named by the presenter, not dragged out by the room.
Answers "why not X?" without getting defensive.
✕ Common mistakes
A guided tour of every box on the diagram.
Decisions presented with no reasoning.
Hiding the weak spots and hoping nobody notices.
Arguing with the reviewer instead of engaging the question.
Wrapping up
Present it live.
This is the capstone. Session 11 is your rehearsal under pushback; Session 12 is the real thing. Present from your Project 5 design doc.
Logistics
10–12 min live · presented Thu 9 July · rehearsed in S11.
the finish line
Nervous?
You can't be surprised by a question you already asked yourself. Pre-mortem your own design.
own the risks
For the instructorHow to teach thisclick to open ▾
The talk-track for introducing and explaining this project to students, beat by beat.
1
Set the tone gently, this is the scariest deliverable for most: "The grade is your reasoning, not your slide design. If the thinking is sound, a plain slide is fine." Take the performance pressure off immediately.
2
The why: "At staff level, the design isn't done until you've convinced people who weren't in your head. This is that skill, rehearsed safely." Frame the room as allies, not judges.
3
Walk the steps; the one beginners get wrong is step 1, they give a tour instead of a spine. Say it directly: "Don't narrate the diagram. Tell us the 3 decisions that mattered."
4
On the time-box template, point out that risks get their own slot before Q&A. "Naming your own weak spot is the single most trust-building move you can make."
5
Rubric: read "defends without getting defensive" carefully. Model it, take a tough question on the spot and answer by naming the axis, not by digging in.
6
Logistics: rehearsed in Session 11, presented Session 12 from their design doc. Close with the pre-mortem tip: "You can't be ambushed by a question you already asked yourself."