Sketch Models

Results

Congratulations to all teams for a wonderful round of sketch model presentations. We'll see you at the next milestone! View all sketch models by clicking here.

Background

The sketch model review is a more formal presentation to the entire class. It takes place on October 6 from 7-10pm in 6-120. The presentation contributes to your grade, and all course instructors will participate in the review process. The goal of the presentation is to inform classmates and instructors about concepts that your team is thinking of, and to obtain helpful design feedback early in the process. You will use feedback from this review to move from four sketch models to three concepts that will be pursued in more detail for the mockup review. The exercise will also help you practice how to present concepts in a formal setting. The word 'concept' is used to imply that we are no longer just proposing big-picture ideas, but we are beginning to flesh out and explore how the ideas might be implemented. Before working on your sketch models, you may want to really think about What to Sketch Model?, and then review the sketch modeling tutorials on designy (cardboard and foamcore, polystyrene foam). Your presentations will be recorded and made available on the course website.

Requirements

Each team should further develop four design concept alternatives for the sketch model phase. The concepts may be four different product ideas within your team's sub-theme, or they could be very different ways of embodying the same concept. Your direction depends on how confident and informed about a particular direction your team feels. Key questions about each concept should be asked and sketch models should be built, as appropriate, to help answer those key questions. You are trying to explore how feasible your concept is, given the time and resources at your team's disposal. At the same time, you also want to research the potential of the concept. What need does the concept fulfill? Who are the users? What does the market look like? Do some market and benchmarking research. Reach out and talk to some potential users for their feedback, and come up with a user persona for the concept. For the sketch model review, your team will be explaining what you were trying to learn from the sketch models, what you learned, who the user persona is for each concept, and also the results of your market and benchmarking research. Each team will have 8 minutes to present the four concepts, and up to 2 minutes of Q&A will follow. Time limits will be adhered to strictly. Plan your presentation to cover all the required points quickly and succinctly. Demonstrate your sketch model early in your presentation ("show, then tell"). Practice not only delivering the presentation, but also answering questions. Non-presenters may answer questions. For your presentation slides, each team must merge material for the four concepts into a single presentation file. We recommend using either Powerpoint or Keynote. Google Slides and other online-based alternatives generally do not look as designed and do not transfer well to the presentation computer, which must be able to play your presentation offline. If you use Google Slides, please download it as either a Powerpoint or Keynote format and test that it works in that format before uploading to the course computer. Some examples of sketches and sketch models are shown on this page. You can view sketch models from other years in the gallery.

Grading

Key grading criteria are:
  • the ideas (thoughtfulness, clarity, and quality of the design alternatives/design exploration)
  • the models (appropriateness of the sketches, sketch models, CAD models, simulations)
  • research (the relevance and quality of technical, market/benchmarking, and customer needs data, including a user persona).
Instructors will attend the review and meet immediately following the review to discuss each teams work and rank order the presentations. Your lab instructor will determine your grade. After you have received written feedback on the website from instructors, complete your milestone reflection in your design notebook.

Pre-Sketch Model Presentation Deliverables

These are the deliverables before the sketch model review:
  • By Wednesday, Oct. 5th, 11:59pm: Submission of names of each concept and the order they will be presented.
  • By Wednesday, Oct. 5th, 11:59pm: One "online-viewable" .pdf per team that includes the presentations for all four of the team's concept. These are not the slides you are presenting with - rather, these are slides downloadable from the website. This can be uploaded here!
  • One presentation file (Powerpoint or Keynote) per team that includes the presentations for all four of the team’s concepts. This powerpoint or keynote file will be uploaded by a team member during one of the presentation upload timeslots.
Should you need to change any of the files after they've been uploaded, please contact 2009ta22@mit.edu.

Preparation Logistics

Each team should prepare an 8-minute presentation that demonstrates and explains all four concepts. We suggest allotting two minutes for each concept. The presentation will be followed by up to 2 minutes of Q&A. The time limits will be strictly enforced. Your communication instructor will be happy to help you prepare for the presentations. There will be a presentation computer, a document camera, and a close-up camera available for your presentation (but only one of the three can be shown at a time on the screen). A member of the team would be responsible for toggling between them and should come to the presenter testing session. If other A/V equipment is needed by your team, please let the staff know (email or Slack) by 5 PM Tuesday.

SUBMISSION OF CONCEPT NAMES

By Wednesday, Oct. 5th, 11:59pm: Each team must submit the names of its four concepts in the order that they will be presented. The submitted names and order will be used to prepare the grading sheets. Please submit descriptive names (e.g., elevating wheelchair), not marketing names. Submit the names here.

Day-of Logistics

PRESENTATION UPLOAD AND TESTING

Thursday, October 6, 2-4:30 PM: Each team will sign up for a 15-minute presentation upload session. All presentations must be uploaded before the start of the sketch model review. A representative from each team must load that team's presentation on Thursday and check that all media (e.g., fonts, movies, CAD animations) are working correctly. Each team should have a single file containing the materials for all four concepts. You may use either Powerpoint, Keynote, or PDF files for your presentations. If you prepare your materials using Google Slides, please save it as a Powerpoint or PDF file and test that the exported file works correctly. We will not be able to use Google Slides for the actual review. Everything must work off-line. Use this scheduling tool to schedule your team's presentation upload and testing time. At your scheduled time, please meet the 2.009 TAs in the Pappalardo Lab. Please have the presentation on a computer ready to be transferred or on a cloud-based drive (e.g., Dropbox, Google Drive) that you know how to access. Please remember to bring any font files, if you are using special fonts. The team representative who attends this session should be familiar with the presentation and know how it is supposed to look. Once the slides are on the presentation computer and tested, you may not make changes to them. Here are the upload times (pink and blue, please let us know if these slots work, we did not see your preferences). Meet the TAs in Pappalardo near Danny’s office. ​​
2:00 PM Purple
2:15 PM Gold
3:00 PM Blue
3:15 PM Orange
3:30 PM Pink
4:00 PM Green
4:15 PM Red

PAPPALARDO LAB AVAILABILITY

Tuesday, October 4 and Wednesday, October 5: Late work hours 6-9pm Thursday, October 6: Work in the Pappalardo Lab will stop at the usual 5 PM on Thursday, but you will have access to pick up your models and other materials in the lab through 6:30 PM. The Pappalardo Lab will be open again after the sketch model review for you to return your sketch models to your team workspaces.

SKETCH MODEL DROP-OFF

Thursday, October 6, 6:15 - 6:45 PM: Each team is responsible for dropping off their sketch models in the hall outside 6-120 between 6:15 PM-6:45 PM.

PRESENTER TESTING

Thursday, October 6, 6:15- 6:45 PM: All presenters should stop by the presentation room and test their slides (make sure it looks ok and practice handling the slide remote). If your team will be using the document camera, close-up camera, or other special A/V equipment for your presentation, the team member who will be responsible for toggling between the different views should stop by and practice doing so. It is important that the actual presenters check the materials and setup in the presentation room.

Review Logistics

The sketch model review will start at 7:10 PM sharp and finish before 10:00 PM. All students (except those with conflicts) should plan on attending, since seeing what the other teams are working on is an important part of the learning experience. The presentations will also be recorded and published on the course website. Please do not just show up for your team's presentation and then leave. Also, please do not use laptops or phones during teams' presentations. The first two teams should have their sketch models set up on the demonstration tables before 7:00 PM. Each team (four sketch models together) will have 8 minutes for its presentation followed by 2-5 minutes of questions.

Order of presentations

Order of Sketch Model Presentations
1 Blue
2 Purple
3 Pink
4 Green
5 Yellow
6 Orange
7 Red
The transitions between teams will take place during the question and answer period at the end of each presentation. The team answering questions should have members designated to help remove the models and props while other members answer questions. Meanwhile, the next presenters will be bringing their materials into the room and setting up AV, and the team going after that will exit the room to get ready for their presentation.

After the Review

The TAs will be photographing the sketch models for the online feedback forms that will be made available overnight. Preliminary feedback will be provided in class on Friday. The feedback will be accessible starting Friday evening, but instructor feedback may still be arriving over the weekend.

Presentation Tips

The communication instructors have prepared the following sketch model presentation tips video. 00:00 Tip 1: Define and Motivate 01:20 Tip 2: Share What You Learned 05:19 Tip 3: Compare with Existing Products 07:22 Tip 4: Convey a Realistic market