Gator Motorsports Forum

Event: EGN 1002 Intro to Engineering Presentation

Event Date: 01/05/2011

Event Location: Reitz Union Auditorium

Team Resources: Two (hopefully willing) Members

Feedback: Overall the presentation wasn't bad. I feel that people were adequately entertained and it was fairly short. More practice definitely would have helped, because nerves do come into play (at least for some of us). Definitely have the presentation somewhere accesible other than just a USB drive since mine did not want to work when it was plugged into the laptop they provided. Other than that, basic presentation etiquette should be observed and things should be kept short and concise so as to avoid boring the audience (remember they are freshman... and transfers). This is not always the easiest thing to do, especially since most people (like me) like to ramble when they are nervous, but resist the urge and it will help, guaranteed. The only changes to the presentation itself which I feel could help would be to add some of the fun photos from the shop (not people goofing off necessarily, but stuff that shows that we are different from other student groups and can have fun while being serious. Also, more videos would be beneficial since they perk the crowd back up and make them more willing to receive longer presentations.

Good feedback Hillary.

Subject Heading: Events of Jan 20 (tabling, speaking, and meeting)

Event Description: Recruiting efforts at the beginning of spring semester shoved all into one day: tabling at Ideal Student Org Fair, presenting to Pro-O, and General body meeting.

Event Date: Thursday Jan 20, 2011

Event Location: Reitz Union colonnade, NEB 1001, CSE E119

Team Resources Needed: Tabling: posters, flyers, assorted members. Presenting and General Body Meeting: Me, Prezi

Feedback: I planned so that all these events fell on the same day so we could recruit kids and have them come to the general body meeting the same day. I have tried to make Thursday SAE days all year. Most student organizations have a regular every other week meetings, since SAE doesn't have meeting that regularly I have tried to ingrain Thursdays as the day for most SAE events into the heads of students.

Each semester the student organization list serve is emailed the date of the IDEAL student organization fair. They always wait until a week before the event to open up registration. They give you a choice between Thursday and Friday, we traditional choose Thursday because members have fewer classes and can spend more time tabling. For tabling I grabbed table cloth (I made an amazing one out of a trash bag), some photos, postcards, posters, and flyers from the shop. Members tabled as pairs in shifts from 10am- 2pm.

Dr. Schmitz (not all pro-o teachers do this) emailed the presidents of various student organizations over Christmas break asking if we would be willing to speak during the sophomore Mech E class, Professional Orientation. Each student organization had to submit their presentation ahead of timeand was give 7 minutes to present. I used a Prezi (http://prezi.com/aqj3mmefwyer/gator-motorsports/) with this Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/user/SAEInternat ... CYO8CyhfNs to show up the other organizations with our technology and fun. Prezi can be tricky but overall people liked it. Dr. Schmitz really liked it and choose me to present 1st which might have been a bad idea because I went over my time. I brought some flyers to hand out but the class us huge (180+) and I wish I brought more. After the presentation the students had a 10 questions quiz on the material, the topic of half those questions was SAE

The General Body Meeting was the same as always. Rented a room on the new online system, hung flyers, made a new Prezi, talked, took the students back to the shop. My only advice here is to make sure that you hang flyers EVERYWHERE and more and more with arrows as you get closer to the room the meeting is to be held in because the registrar only gives out obscure rooms in basements for meetings.

Event Description: Shop open house immediately following the career fair's technical day.

Event Date: Jan 26th, 2011

Event Location: GMS Shop

Team Resources Needed: Clean GMS shop, As many members as possible, Drinks

Feedback:

This semester I had even fewer companies respond to my invitation than in the fall. In fact, only Schlumberger replied and showed up! Drinks were on ice, which the Schlumberger reps enjoyed. The e-mail volume was the same as Fall semester, and was sent out a month in advance. With attendance this low, I am not sure if the Spring open house is worthwhile.

Event Description: Schlumberger information session hosted by us for all students

Event Date: Jan 25th, 2011

Event Location: CSE119

Team Resources Needed: Schlumberger, As many members as possible, Flyers, Room Reservation, Food, Drinks, Cups/Napkins/Plates

Feedback:

The overall turnout was around 18 people including team members. I ordered 1 large and 1 medium Chick-Fil-A chicken strip tray with iced tea and lemonade for the attendees. For 18 people, this was way too much food. I would recommend only one large platter for about 25-30 people. Getting the food squared with whoever is coming for the info session days before is a good idea, as I only had about 6 hours notice for this particular info session. Flyers need to go up a few days before, hopefully that could find an increase in turnout.

Event Description: New Student Shop Day Spring 2011

Event Date: Feb. 3, 2011

Event Location: The Shop

Team Resources: 3 members (Ashley, Myself and Kyle)

Feedback:

There was very low turn out. Six people showed up and I decided that giving them a full fledge New Student Shop Day would be weird because they would form groups of 1 to 2 people. I decided to give them a tour myself of the Shop, but more in depth than usual, making sure to emphasize the work we do on the manual machines and CNC's.

After the tour, three members helped with electrical system harness and the other three joined me to make a part on the lathe. All in all it was a great event with no problem, since there were so few people it was very casual and lots of good questions. Maybe in the future New Student Shop Day would be a group having their own tour guide throughout the entire event.

Event Description: E-Week/E-Fair

Event Date: Feb 21-25, 2011 (all week)

Event Location: The Reitz Grand ballroom

Team Resources: The whole team tabling, six members to carry the car up and down to the grand ballroom

Feedback:

The event started with having the take the car up the stairs to the grand ballroom. Reitz Union services were not very helpful, they did not allow us to carry the car up the night before because they said they had an event. They told me that the event would end at 10 pm and they would be there until 12 am flipping the room. This story changed when I asked them again from 12 am to 2 am. I again offered that we would rather take up it at night rather tues. morning because our members had class and forcing members to get to the shop in the morning is a difficult task. In the end, we would have to move the car at night, despite my annoying efforts.

It was quite difficult making sure everybody got there on time, but in the end we had six members and were able to carry the car up before 8:30 am. For the next two days we tabled and talked to dozens of people about our program. The tabling went good as far as I could tell, our members showed up on time, sometimes more than we needed, and people seemed to be interested. The real interest was the car and people did not seem to really look at what was on our table, but we want to make sure that we have something for people to take with them. This could be flyers of upcoming events or post cards.

After two days of tabling, the car was brought down without problem. Overall it was a good event that helped us get our image and work out for people to see. In the future, I would try to make sure the car goes up the night before, somehow. Also, make sure that members know how to set up a table and be prepared to be the first session. Ashley and I, the people who generally set up the table both had class that morning so it resulted in other people having to set up the table. Tabling in general is usually a skill that is brought on by practice, but I think we could hold a small session at the beginning of the year (fall) in order to provide our members with some tips and table set up so that every member can help.

Event Description: TEDxUF

Event Date: Feb. 26, 2011

Team Resources: 4 Members, Design boards, pictures, magazines, post cards, business cards, and some examples of the work we do at Formula.

Feedback:

The event was very big, with a lot of potential sponsors walking around. Our objective to present Formula SAE as the best program out there in the technological aspect and potentially gain more sponsorship by meeting professionals from industry that usually do not have time for us.

The event went great, although I lost my voice due to that fact that they were playing music (loud at that) while you were trying to talk to someone. There is not much that could be done to remedy that situation so it was just a matter of yelling loudly to get people to understand you were greeting them. Our props were a great idea, that helped bring more questions out of the people coming to our table and allowed for a visual confirmation of what we do.

Overall I think we should try to go again, despite the fact that we didn't get any sponsorship right there and then, just having our name and image in as many places as possible allows for people to be aware we exist and improve our image and interpersonal skills.