Pond Springs Demo

We just had a very successful demo at Pond Springs elementary on November 17th, 2011. Throughout the demo, I essentially acted as the "spokesperson" for our team, giving a speech about our robot, and then taking questions from the kids or the adults. It was a very fun experience.

I also learned a lot about communication in this format, that is with a very large audience.

A) If you know the information well enough, you don't need to plan much. I walked into the school with essentially no idea what I was going to talk about. I just quickly ran through the major points in my head, decided on an order, and I was ready to go.

B) The method of communication needs to be altered given the audience. I was giving a speech to elementary schoolers, so I had to make the robot very easy to understand, but yet be true to the information. I was able to dumb down the complex cRIO communication system with our driver station to enable joystick control of the motors to "The laptop tells the brain what to do". And that was it, the children instantly understood the idea of joystick control of a robot, and the idea behind a "brain", or some sort of central processor.

The real question is how do I apply to this to my real communication problem. The answer is simple, sufficient knowledge of what is being presented and a good deliverance is key to my success as a leader of a club. I have noticed many "empty" presentations in the past, where people gave a presentation on something they didn't really understand, and were forced to fake knowledge and failed to answer any questions. This cannot be the case to have a successful team. I need to fully understand all the information, just like I did for the demo, and I will have similar success with leading a successful, and a winning team. I also need to understand who I am talking to, and even when in the workshop with fellow high schoolers. Use simple language, let everyone, including any unexperienced engineers, understand what is happening. It is of no use to  use advanced engineering vocabulary when simple words will suffice.

Excited for the next season!