Quarter 2 Week 8 TA Check-In

In Week 8 of Quarter 2 – that is, between February 26th and March 1st) – your entire group is required to meet with your assigned TA for 20 minutes. You can see your assigned TA in your group on both the Enrollment and Staff pages.

Presentation

The primary goal of the Week 8 check-in is to gauge your preparedness to talk about your project at the in-person capstone showcase on March 15th. Note that you can now see your assigned block, both at hdsishowcase.com and this sheet. (As soon as you can, please add a working title for your project at the aforementioned sheet.)

Firstly, you must come prepared with the latest version of your poster; it should be further along than the poster checkpoint you submitted on February 18th. Bring a laptop on which you can display your latest version. The version of the poster you show should follow the updated branding guidelines listed here. Specifically, at the top of the poster, the names and emails of all group members should appear, with the mentor’s name and email appearing at the end, and the HDSI logo should be in the top right.

In addition, you must come prepared to talk about your project. As the Conversations section of the Poster Presentation page of the Quarter 2 Project specifications states, at the poster session, you must be prepared to have conversations with attendees who come from a range of backgrounds (from DSC 10 students to industry partners and faculty). To gauge your readiness, your TA will repeatedly select a random student in your group and ask them a question, such that the questions build off of one another.

• The first question your TA will ask your group is, “So, what’s your project about?” Your response should effectively be a two-minute elevator pitch summarizing your project and its impact. One group member will be randomly selected to give this elevator pitch; as such, everyone should be prepared to.
• Then, your TA will repeatedly ask randomly-selected group members to answer followup questions. Each member in your group will be asked at least one question, and each member in your group must speak.

To reiterate, all group members are expected to be present in-person, and all are expected to speak. If you do not appear at your check-in and don’t schedule a followup, you will lose half of your 10% checkpoint grade.

Website

In addition to working through your presentation and poster, your TA will also give you feedback on your website, whose checkpoint is due on February 25th. You are expected to keep refining your website even after the checkpoint.

To sign up for a check-in, go here. Make sure to sign up as a group and include your group number (e.g. A04-1), and only for your TA!
Like the showcase, which is mandatory and in-person only, your Week 8 check-in with your TA is also mandatory and in-person only. All check-ins are held in-person in the HDSI building; locations can be found in the sheet.