Clarity to Confusion; Champions to Zombies, we call it Capstone
A manic week it was. From finishing our book to presenting in front of 30 some people. The week just flew by.
Let us rewind a little. It was the end of April, we had just come back from Baltimore, conducted back to back visioning sessions, and realized what we thought we were presenting as a solution to move forward with was just a small piece of the pie. We only had a week to reconstruct our entire solution that we had been working towards for the last month or so.
So everyday we came in with another piece of presentation, and another suggested change. By this time it was May and capstone presentations had begun. After seeing Zensors and Harman’s presentation and (I) couldn’t fathom how we would actually be presenting a substantial solution in less than a week.
Theirs and each following presentation, had a very clear cut direction the team was moving forward with in summer. In my mind, our team had all the process and research required, but given our recent discoveries from Baltimore, less than a week ago, we were no where close to having a direction to move forward with for summer.
And then one day… it magically all came together.
It felt like we just added the last piece of a puzzle… well not so seamlessly, but still a great feeling.
We set up some time with our advisors for a final run through and decided we would make no more changes beyond that, but rather would just focus on practicing. And practice we did.
We set up the our originally bowling alley turned studio presentation space — 3 times might I add. We were so focused on our presentation, we forgot other people actually used the space. We set it up one day before at noon. Then that same day at night. And then again the morning before our presentation…so much for being prepared.
It was May 9th. The clock struck 12 and we saw students, faculty and our clients pouring in. We definitely had more people than we expected. I’m not sure if students were excited by procure to pay or trying to complete attendance requirements. Either way, it worked for us.
The presentation was over a blink of an eye.
Feeling accomplished, like we had just climbed Mt. Everest, we ran a co-design with our clients.
By the end of the 3 hours we successfully had our clients talking to each other about the potential opportunities and us….. well by then we just looked like zombies.
So we wrapped up and went out for a drink to celebrate!
The biggest take away is that in capstone there will always be curve balls and you will ABSOLUTELY have no idea how you are going to move forward. Take a step back, look at the big picture and keep at it — trust us — it will all work out.
Till next time,
Team Flux (our constant state)
