Documentation and Presentation

A large part of the CRE[AT]E Challenge will be documenting and presenting your work. Since the Challenge is distributed, the only way that most of the remote mentors, staff, and other students will ever see your project is through the design reviews and documents you submit. 

Being able to effectively communicate what you have done will make it much easier for all of the following:

• letting remote mentors understand what you are doing in order to provide better feedback

• justifying your funding requests to Beaver Works, or your funding pitches to other potential sponsors

• preserving your process for others who may want to make something similar in the future (dramatically expanding your impact)

Documentation and Storytelling

Guidelines for Clear Presentation

Tips for Design Review Videos

Over the years, we have seen some common problems and solutions from teams when submitting design reviews. Please consider the following:

• We want to see your team! Please have your cameras on while you are presenting.

• Consider where your team's faces are when you are recording - sometimes your faces end up blocking important information on the slides, so if your recording is such that your faces are over the slides, position the camera view somewhere blank.

• We recommend the use of Zoom to make your recordings - this will let your team record from more than one location and without watermarks.

• If you wish, you may use software like Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) to fine-tune your camera and presentation placements.

• Make sure to check your audio - we cannot review what we cannot hear.

Documentation and Presentation Review

1. Review the final submission requirements under the "Black Gate" heading

2. Each member of your team should pick a different team from a previous season (either 2022-2023 or 2023-2024)

• At least one member of your team should pick a team that won the Documentation Award

• If you were on a team that participated in a previous season, do not choose your own team

3. Watch the final presentation video for that year (from the Presentation Playlist) and read the team's final document

4. Using the lectures above and the final submission requirements as guidelines, answer the following questions separately for the video and the document:

• What did that team do well (according to the submission requirements)?

  • Note that there were slight differences in time allowances for the videos between the previous seasons

• What could have been improved?

• Comment on how elements of either the video or document would apply to your project if you know already for your project

Remember that we are having you review final submissions for this assignment - the earlier design reviews that you complete will likely not look quite as polished (and will have different requirements) and that is to be expected.