Long Project: Introduction

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In this video, instructor Kyle Keane provides some context about the student projects and presentations, including how long teams had to build their games and what information they should cover in the presentations.

KYLE KEANE: All right. Cool. So projects, presentations are going to happen. And we're going to start with the video games, and then we're going to take a cool break in the middle to play with a collaborative, crowdsourced, cloud-based robot that's going to try to follow all of our collective input in order to grab a piece of paper, that Abhinav, the TA for the Arduino class, has been building in his free time. That's a good embarrassed face.

So that's a way to model embarrassment. I appreciate that, because we're all going to feel embarrassed when we present, and that's OK. I feel embarrassed right now trying to get your attention and pull you away from your projects, because I know that that's what you want to be doing right now. So that's OK. We're all going to feel embarrassed. But we're going to share, and not in order to impress everyone with how amazing our project was, but to open up a dialogue about what we learned and what other people can learn from us.

So the point of coming up and sharing your presentation is not to get accolades from your friends about how amazingly brilliant you are. It's to share something, so that if someone's interest gets piqued, they can go, oh, cool! How did you do that thing? And then you have a chance to teach them about that really specific thing that you did, if you were able to make a really cute thing on the screen move, or if you're able to make a really cool video game work, or if you're able to make a fun Arduino electronics project. This is your chance to teach by sharing what you do and inviting other people to ask questions about it.

So this is not about impressing each other. Most of you will never-- which way are you trying to shift me? Oh, yeah. You guys. Most of you won't talk after this class, so don't worry if you do something embarrassing. You won't see most of these people. The ones that you do, exchange emails with them and talk to them after, and they're not going to care if you do something silly up here. So I just want to set the expectation that this is not a competitive presentation environment. We're not getting venture capital. There's nothing other than a learning opportunity here.

ANDREW RINGLER: As Kyle said, we're not competing. Hopefully you had fun and learned something over the last two weeks. That's teachers' only goal, to let you have fun and learn something. So yeah. I think the point of this two weeks is to get your feet wet with Arduino and see what it's like to plan a project and try to build it, and then figure out how to do it better next time. So that's what we do.

But that said, all your groups did amazing. You did so much work, which is awesome, and we're all excited to see what you have to present. Thank you. All right.

KYLE KEANE: You're done?

ANDREW RINGLER: Yes, I'm done.

KYLE KEANE: All right, cool.

ANDREW RINGLER: Come on in.

KYLE KEANE: All right. So the first group to present is going to-- I'll let them come up and introduce. So the video game groups, when you come up, take the microphone, introduce your game, demo your game-- or introduce your game, talk about anything that you feel inspired to talk about, if there is a fun, interesting learning experience, or if something gets you really excited, talk about that. Demo your game. And then we're going to open it up to questions.

As an audience member, the best thing that you can do to support someone who's presenting is to make occasional eye contact and pay some attention, and then at the end be able to ask a question that reflects-- I know. I'm very explicit, but you'd be amazed at how many people don't make eye contact with the presenters. And then ask questions at the end, which reflects something like-- that looked really cool. How did you do that? And what you're doing is you're setting them up to look smart and share something that they're passionate about and feel supported.

And you, too, will have your chance to be up here. And I guarantee that you will want to have an audience that makes eye contact and then asks you questions about things that were interesting in your project so that you, too, can feel supported and interesting and like people care about what you're doing. Because a lot of this class was two weeks of passion projects. We don't have a lot of structure, because I think that you're here for two weeks, and you should opt into the project that you want to do, and you should find people that you want to work with.

So a lot of this work that you've done over the last two weeks represents a personal investment. And so respect that in each other. Everyone who's up here presenting put a lot of their own interest and passion into this. So yeah-- support, support, support. So, first group, are you ready to present? All right. Here you go.

[CLAPPING]