Project Poster
Objective
Presenting your work to others is an essential part of good engineering. Posters are a common way to present information at conferences and other venues. Your poster will be used to publicize and explain your project to industry representatives, faculty, and other students. You will display the poster at the Design Fair, and it may be displayed at your sponsor’s site, engineering conferences, or prominent display areas at BYU. There are multiple examples and poster helps here.
Poster Contents
The poster must be able to stand alone and communicate main ideas to the reader, assuming he or she has very little understanding of the technical details or even anything about the Capstone process.
NOTE: Any reader should be able to walk up to your poster and understand the problem you were trying to solve, your solution, and how well you solved the original problem, regardless of technical background or lack thereof.
The poster should contain the following content (use of the exact titles is NOT required):
- Project Background
- Context for sponsor and project
- Context for sponsor and project
- Project Objective
- Clear summary of project objective without deadlines or budget (unless the budget is a significant factor in your objective)
- Clear summary of project objective without deadlines or budget (unless the budget is a significant factor in your objective)
- Design
- Explain your design solution
- Diagrams (labeled)
- Models (labeled)
- Photos (ensure they reflect proper safety protocols)
- Whatever makes sense to YOUR project
- Explain your design solution
- Targeted Performance
- Key Success Measures for Excellent Performance and any other market requirements you deem significant
- Do NOT include your entire Key Success Measures table with all levels of performance (Stretch, Good, Fair)
- Key Success Measures for Excellent Performance and any other market requirements you deem significant
- Realized Performance
- Include your actual results. If not yet available, use fake data, fully formatted as a placeholder for upcoming actual results. ACTUAL results must be present prior to printing your final poster.
- Include your actual results. If not yet available, use fake data, fully formatted as a placeholder for upcoming actual results. ACTUAL results must be present prior to printing your final poster.
- Impact/Why it matters
- What is the benefit of your work? How does it impact the sponsor, the community, or the world at large?
- What is the benefit of your work? How does it impact the sponsor, the community, or the world at large?
Requirements
- Your main point of contact throughout the poster design process will be your External Relations Manager. That’s Allyson (allyson_gibson@byu.edu) for Long, Nordin, and Lunt pods or Lisa (lisa_barrager@byu.edu) for Davies and Jensen pods.
- Use the team-specific PowerPoint template that will be available by the day of the Poster Workshop. You will find it in your team Box folder under Public Relations. (PowerPoint is available on cloudapps.byu.edu if needed).
- Teams may not make changes to the poster’s header or footer. If an edit is required, contact Allyson or Lisa, who can approve and make the change. Only work in the white space of the poster.
- Refer to the Poster Helps website pages for design assistance, including pre-formatted text boxes with appropriate fonts and sizes, frames for images, attractive color schemes, and a trove of helpful information to expedite your poster design process.
- Do NOT use the sponsor’s logo anywhere on the poster.
- Poster size must remain 30×40 inches.
- All graphic elements must be at least 300 dpi for printing at full size. CAD renderings should be saved with a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. A simple calculation can be done for images by dividing the total number of pixels by 300. For example, a 2400×3000 pixel image divided by 300 yields a maximum printing size of 8×10.
- You will email links to your poster for all submissions. Your final poster will not be printed until you have: (1) received printing clearance from either Allyson or Lisa and (2) been scheduled to print by the Capstone office.
The template in your Box folder is specific for your team. You may not change anything in the header or footer sections of the poster. If you feel there is an error in the header or footer, please contact Allyson or Lisa for help in resolving it.
Do not change the overall poster size of 30x40 inches.
Sponsor Approval
The poster must be approved by the project sponsor for public presentation. The process for obtaining sponsor approval is:
- Work early with your sponsor/liaison to be sure they are happy with any information and images in the poster.
- Send them your initial poster draft, incorporate their feedback, and send them your revised drafts until they are satisfied with the final product. This should be done in parallel with Capstone submissions.
- When you have addressed all feedback from the instructor, office, coach, and sponsor, put the Powerpoint and PDF versions in the Public Relations folder in Box. The file name should be Team XX Final Poster
- Email your External Relations Manager – Allyson (allyson_gibson@byu.edu) or Lisa (lisa_barrager@byu.edu) – to let them know the poster is ready for formal sponsor approval.
- Lisa or Allyson will let you know when sponsor approval has been obtained.
It is common for some sponsors (especially defense contractors or national labs) to require 30 days of internal review before approving a document for public release. If this is true for your sponsor, you need to submit a "final" copy of your poster well in advance of your sponsor's internal deadlines and you often cannot revise it substantially after their approval. Plan accordingly!
Printing Your Poster
NOTE: YOU MUST FOLLOW THE CAPSTONE PRINTING PROCESS TO PRINT YOUR POSTER. Printing expenses at Cougar Creations, Print and Mail, FedEx or any other vendor are not reimbursable. By using the Capstone process we obtain high-quality posters at a reasonable price.
The following steps are required to print your poster.
- Your External Relations Manager will notify you by email when your final poster design has been approved for printing.
- Upon printing approval, call or go to the Capstone office. The office will schedule a printing time for your team and set your appointment with CAEDM.
- Follow the specific instructions given by the Capstone office for printing. You will print your poster in the CAEDM lab on the 4th floor of the CB according to your scheduled time. A member of the team must be present while the poster prints.
- Return the printed poster to the Capstone office. Be careful not to wrinkle or smear your poster.
- The final printed poster must be delivered to the Capstone office no later than 5:00 PM on Tuesday, 4/2/23. Earlier deliveries are gratefully accepted.
Appointment slots fill up quickly and the best way to ensure that your poster printing meets the final deadline is to begin the approval process as early as possible and to respond quickly to requests for changes to the poster.
POSTER SUBMISSION -- STEP BY STEP
REQUIRED Poster Workshop (at least one team member)
- REQUIRED Poster Workshop. At least ONE member of each team is required to attend. Attendance is a portion of your Team Professionalism score. One team member attending earns the full points for the entire team.
- Each team will sign up for a timeslot to review their poster draft with Allyson (Long, Nordin, and Lunt pods) or Lisa (Davies and Jensen pods).
- Each team will sign up for a timeslot (3/11-3/13) to review the poster draft. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yTol_fL7_LsONvizLmIE5VtcA1zFAGVJLo6d-hjapOw/edit#gid=0
INITIAL POSTER DRAFT DUE
- Poster first draft is due. Each team will email a link to the PDF version of their poster to either allyson_gibson@byu.edu (Long, Nordin, and Lunt pods) or lisa_barrager@byu.edu (Davies and Jensen pods) in your Box drive. Your poster should be in your Box drive in the Public Relations folder.
- Poster filename should be “Team XX Initial Poster Draft”
- Each team will send this version to the sponsor for initial review of content and incorporate feedback from the sponsor accordingly.
IN-PERSON INITIAL POSTER REVIEW
- In-person Poster reviews in EB 346 (ME Conference Room). Sign up for a day and time IN ADVANCE at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yTol_fL7_LsONvizLmIE5VtcA1zFAGVJLo6d-hjapOw/edit#gid=0
- Please arrive on time. This will take ten minutes, and we will keep things moving.
- One person from the team to attend. Please do NOT plan for the entire team to attend. This would be a waste of the team’s time.
- At the review, you will receive:
- Written comments from your pod instructor about content
- General feedback about layout, design, etc
- A paper copy of your poster (11×17) with recommendations to take with you
- Written comments from your pod instructor about content
REVISED POSTER DUE
- Revised poster is due. Each team will send an email with two links to their poster – the PDF and the PPT – to either allyson_gibson@byu.edu (Long and Nordin pods) or lisa_barrager@byu.edu (Davies and Jensen pods). Your poster should be in your Box drive in the Public Relations folder in both formats.
- Email subject line should be “Team XX Revision # Poster Draft”
- Poster filename should be “Team XX Revision # Poster Draft”
- This version should have all sponsor feedback incorporated. Send an updated version of the poster to your sponsor.
REVISIONS AS NEEDED
- Allyson and Lisa will review your revised poster draft and contact you by email with further instructions.
- If your poster is approved at this point, you will call or visit the Capstone office that same day to schedule an appointment for final poster printing. Please do not delay this step.
- If additional revisions are needed, you will iterate through those with Allyson or Lisa. This may be done by email for simple changes, or you may need to do this in person with Allyson (450S EB) or Lisa (350R EB) for more substantial changes.
- Please get your poster printed and delivered to the Capstone Office as soon as you are approved to print.
LAST DAY TO SUBMIT FINAL POSTER
- Final poster is due. Each team will send an email with two links to their poster – the PDF and the PPT – to either allyson_gibson@byu.edu (Long and Nordin pods) or lisa_barrager@byu.edu (Davies and Jensen pods). Your poster should be in your Box drive in the Public Relations folder in both formats.
- Email subject line should be “Team XX Final Poster”
- Poster filename should be “Team XX Final Poster”
- Allyson or Lisa will confirm official approval from your sponsor for the poster and that all necessary changes have been made. At that point, we will notify you that you are approved to print. You should then go to the Capstone office to schedule a time to print the poster with CAEDM.
- A member of the team must be present while the poster is printing. This can take up to half an hour (or more in some cases). Allow the poster to fully dry and handle it very carefully (they smudge quite easily). Once dry, hand in the poster in the Capstone office.
- Please allow your poster to dry completely after printing and then bring it to the Capstone Office to store until the Design Fair. You do not need to wait until the due date to bring your poster to the office. The Capstone staff will bring all posters to the WSC Ballroom the morning of the Design Fair.
- On Design Fair morning when you come to set up your space, please come grab your poster and a backer board. Place the backer board on the easel at your display space and clip the poster to the board.
- At the end of the Design Fair, leave your poster and backer board on your easel and the office staff will collect them.