COGNITIVE STIMULATION ALEXA SKILL FOR ALZHEIMER'S PATIENTS
Project 1 - Problem Statement
This project has allowed me to learn more about our final project. We were uncertain with our idea and did not know what to do. However, when we started working on this project, we came across a lot of information that gave us some directions to walk into. After submitting more than five drafts, we are quite certain where we are heading to.
With each draft, we kept getting more clear about what we need to do. In the beginning, we had a very generic objective, but with more drafts, we were able to narrow down our objective to a specific direction. With multiple drafts, we were also able to differentiate what information is relevant from our giant pool of information. At this point of the project, we have identified the major problems and the constraints in the current solution because of continuously revising our draft and going deeper into the core of the problem.
Project 2 - Presentation
The presentation and problem statement went hand in hand. The challenge we came across was to come together as a team and prepare the presentation. Since, we couldn't meet often, we would do our slides individually and it was difficult to make the presentation cohesive. One of our team mate suggest we split our group into two - One takes care of first part, while the other team takes care of the second part. This allowed us to add some cohesiveness to our presentation. However, we had realized that some of the details in the second part contradicts those in first half. It was necessary for the entire team to come together and to finalize the presentation. We resorted to video conferencing so that we could be together, at least virtually.
Overall, the presentation went great. We openly took feedback and criticism from the class and improved on our practice presentation deliver a great final presentation.
Project 3 - CV
I had a great CV ready before this project. But looking more closely, I realized it could be made much better. Small details when tweaked can make huge differences. For example, the Engineering Projects Section was the last section at my CV. After changing the order, it is at the top after Education, and it made a difference because people noticed my hard work right at the beginning. I also deleted some texts which were repetitive, and those which were unnecessary. This allowed me to add a Skills section, thus making me look like a more competent candidate.
Project 4 - Data Analysis Email
In the beginning, I didn't know what to do or where to start. I just knew our project could save money in the informal care of Alzheimer's patient. Keeping that in mind, I simply wrote what was asked in the guidelines. With each draft, my idea about this project kept getting clear. Finally, I understood that visualization is a lot better than writing. For this reason, I prepared a table in power point so that our stake holders could visualize our data. Adding a power point just improved the clarity of the email a lot. That's the power of data when it is organized and visualized.
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Project 5 - Poster and Video
Poster is an excellent tool for communication with a laymen crowd. A poster is not very technical, yet effective. Through this project, I learned how to communicate effectively through visualization. The jigsaw description clearly showed the core of our project, and the graphs clearly pictured the data. I also learned how to improve the aesthetics of posters and how we can make small tweaks in the background color to give a better overall effect.
As for the video, I learned how to pick out relevant information from lots of information. The video is only a minute long, so we had to be efficient in portraying with the little time we had. Although the video was a minute, there were hours of hard work behind it.
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