Week 29, Year 2: Presentations.

First week back!..Aaand I need another holiday, the last one didn't count. I spent most of my working hours over Easter writing my reflective essay and redoing my character project. I also worked on Off the Map (a bit) and spent some time preparing the 'carte blanche' presentation, which I gave this week.

I chose to do my presentation on skydiving and the challenges of simulating flight in a wingsuiting game, such as Volo airsport. I wanted to do it on a subject that I felt was interesting and something from which I could draw on my own experience.

I was surprised by how nervous I was. It's amazing how difficult it is to stand in front of people and talk about a subject in a formal, coherent way. I had a script memorised which seemed fine in practice, but somehow being in front of other humans changes how you feel about it completely.

I didn't have a meltdown though and I got through it. Among other things, I could've spoken clearer and fidgeted less, but I hit all my points, I knew my slides well and the presentation hopefully came across as well prepared.

Plus anything with this gif in it's got to be pretty good, right?

The Birdly device.

It was remarked that my presentation could have touched on whether or not VR should even try to replicate the thrill of flying. My presentation actually began as just that, but I quickly realized that 3 minutes was not enough time. My first draft covered this as concisely as I could and I still ended up talking at a million miles an hour.

As I continued to research, practice and revise the presentation, it quickly became a pitch for a VR simulation game. I'm not sure that this was the best choice, but for this presentation it seems the content is the least important part. For next time, I learned:

• Before doing anything else, pick an appropriate topic and work out what is a reasonable amount of information to convey in the allocated time. Educate, convey an idea, or make a point, but be clear from the start.
• I get more nervous than I anticipate, but this isn't an issue as long as I've practiced my slides and I know the material very well.
• Even for extremely short, timed presentations, a 'script' may not be suitable. Consider the environment and be clear on the formality of the presentation from the start.

So I'm pretty stressed out at the moment, it seems like all the 'grade stuff' like essays and character projects have all sprung out at once. The deadline for all that is at the end of this week. 

At least after that I only have to work on one project until we finish for the year – in less than three weeks.