Most engineering schools require students to design and construct some sort of prototype before graduating. At my school, this prototyping requirement is called "Senior Design Project". Although most students have the ability to create a great project, when the Demo comes they end up selling themselves too short.
Here is some advice on how to make a great impression:
1- Make sure your project is always "Demoable"
- At any stage in the development, you should be able to make a demonstration to someone walking by. If you feel you have nothing to show, then you are probably not heading in the right direction.
- Instead of working one feature at a time, work on all features progressively.
- Always keep in mind the vision of the finished project and make sure everything you work on builds up towards that vision.
- Think about the Demo itself. The project probably makes sense to you, but someone who has never seen it might need a didactic interaction in order to "get it".
2- Find a way to make it interesting to a broad range of people
- You might be working on a very complicated problem from a computationally point of view, but this might not be very interesting to people outside the field.
- Find a way to relate your work to a broad range of disciplines. For example, if you are working on a portable Head-Up display, you can explain people how it could be used by an architect or a doctor.
- Try practicing ways to make your project sound cool. How would you describe it to a 10 year old kid. By the way, my team won the people's choice award by only a couple votes which were cast by a group of middle school children. (The runner up project was iLights, check it out)
3- Take pictures and make videos !
- Keep a record of all you have accomplished-- you never know when things are going to blow up.
4- Advertise your key differentiators
- Think about every aspect of your prototype that could be a competitive advantage.
- Is your project a revealing innovation?
- Is your project 10x cheaper than similar products in the market today?
- Is your product faster, smaller, cooler ?
- Is your product fool proof ?
- Is your product RoHS compliant ?
- Is your product children safe?
5- Sharpen up your Marketing and Public Relations skills
- Spend a good amount of time making an appealing (but also functional) poster.
- Make video demos that people can watch online.
- Call a local newspaper or magazine and tell them about your work.
- Talk to the department's editor so you can get on the school's website.
- Go to national and international competitions.
