1. Learn how to create an effective visual presentation of a project through a poster.
2. Learn how to give a succinct oral presentation, in conjunction with your poster, to summarize a project.

Here is the rubric [PDF] that will be used in evaluating your poster and presentation.

• July 17
  • CS afternoon lab: Introduce poster and consider topics
  • Evening Study Hall: Through Moodle, submit a written proposal (in pdf) for poster topic by 8am July 18
• July 18
  • CS morning class: Discuss and refine poster topic
• July 18-19, 22-23
  • Evening Study Hall: Create draft of poster, plan and practice presentation
• July 24
  • CS afternoon lab: Present (electronic) draft of poster to class
  • Evening Study Hall: Make final edits to poster based on feedback given in class
• July 25
  • CS morning class: Print final poster at Beardsley Media Center
• July 26
  • Evening Study Hall: Practice poster presentation
• July 27
  • Science Center Commons (10am-12pm): Public poster session

Many professional conferences include poster sessions where researchers present their work. Often these poster sessions can be quite large with many posters on display at once. Conference attendees walk through the poster session, browsing the titles and choosing a few posters to stop at and explore in more depth.

In order to grab people's attention, your poster must be visually engaging. It must have large enough font sizes so that it can read from 10-15 feet away. Most importantly it needs to clearly highlight the key ideas of your work. The goal of the poster is to generate interest in your work, hopefully leading people to follow up by interacting with you one-on-one.

Here are two example posters from my own research. The first was presented at a small, interdisciplinary workshop as part of a much bigger conference. The audience was largely made up of researchers who were neither computer scientists nor roboticists, thus the poster had to present the material at a much broader level. The second was presented at a medium-sized conference with a more robot-focused audience, therefore it goes into more depth about the details of the algorithm being explored.

1. Poster presented at the "Designing for Curiosity" Workshop as part of the 2017 Conference on Human Computer Interaction in Denver, Colorado
2. Poster presented at the 2017 Conference on Development and Learning and on Epigenetic Robotics in Lisbon, Portugal

Both of these posters discuss the same research project, but at different phases in the work. Each conference had different requirements for the poster's size. The first is in landscape mode (wider than it is high). The second is in portrait mode (higher than it is wide). Your poster will be in landscape mode. Do you find one of them more visually engaging than the other? If so, which one and why?

There are many other example posters along the main CS Department hallway, and throughout the entire Science Center. As you walk around the Science Center, notice which posters grab your attention and try to determine why.

During lab today, I will visit with each of you to hear about what topics or problems you're considering as the focus of your poster. You are free to explore any topic that has come up in any of your Summer Scholar experiences including classes and field trips. Based on the topic you choose, we will assign a faculty member for you to consult with as you create your poster.

Doug Willen from ITS has developed this helpful video about how to create an effective scientific poster. Each of you should watch this video (focus on the first 20 minutes). Even if you aren't doing a science-based poster, there's lots of good advice about how to make your poster eye catching and at the right level of detail.

Use Google Slides to create your poster. Here are the steps you'll need to do to get started:

• Create a new Blank Presentation
• Under the Slide menu, choose Apply Layout, and select Blank
• Under the File menu, choose Page setup, select Custom, and specify 48x35 inches.

Now you can start adding the content of your poster. These requirements apply to all posters:

• Your titles and headings should be in a sans serif font, which is better for grabbing attention. These are fonts which do not include lines at the end of characters, such as Helvetica, Avant Garde, Ariel, or Geneva.
• The content of your poster should be in a serif font, which is easier to read.
• Your titles should be 72 point size.
• Your headings should be at least 48 point size.
• Your text should be at least 36 point size.
• You should limit the amount of text on your poster and include ample visualizations.
• You should divide the content of the poster up into clear sections. For a wide poster, using columns that are highlighted using color can be very effective.

Before we print your poster, we will project your poster on the screen at the front of the class. Be prepared to talk for 5 minutes. Give a top-down explanation of your work, starting with the overall goal and then going into the details. Be sure to conclude by summarizing the key points. It's ok to repeat the main points several times, at both the beginning and the end of your presentation.