Slide outline for Lesson 7.10. Day 1 is slides 1 to 8. Day 2 is slides 9 to 15. Slides 4 and 5 stay up both days; a team building a poster needs the panel order and the prototype menu in view while the teacher is in the stuck-team protocol with somebody else.
DAY 1: Build
Build the Pitch and Prototype, Day 1
- Unit 7, Lesson 7.10, Topic 7.2 FACS Shark Tank
- Two days. Eighty minutes of class time. Then you pitch
Teacher notes
Image: a blank poster board leaning against a wall next to a tray of markers.
Material trays laid out before the bell. The build clock written on the board as four ten-minute blocks. Do the four-gate scan in the first three minutes before anybody picks up a marker.
Do now
- List every single thing your team has to finish before Friday
- Put a star next to the one that will take the longest
Teacher notes
Take four teams' starred items. Then the hook, with the clock on the board: "You have eighty minutes of class time left. That is it. Your starred item gets the first thirty of them."
Numbers Clinic. Fifteen minutes.
- Your own unit cost, line by line
- Price, margin, fixed cost
- Break-even in units, rounded up
- One-month projection with a reason that is not a guess
- CFO signs. I initial. No signed page, no poster
Teacher notes
Run this only if Lesson 7.8 ran one period. If Lesson 7.8 ran two days, skip this slide and give these fifteen minutes back to build time. Say which version you are running out loud.
The five panels
| PANEL 1 | PANEL 2 | PANEL 3 | PANEL 4 | PANEL 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| THE PROBLEM | THE SOLUTION | THE CUSTOMER | THE NUMBERS | THE ASK |
| One sentence + one image | What you make, + one differentiator | Five specifics + one real quote | Five numbers, BIG | What you want, with a number |
| CMO | CMO | CMO | CFO | CEO |
Teacher notes
A judge reads these left to right without being told to. The one hard rule: panel 4 has to be readable from ten feet. Somebody stands at the back and reads it out loud. If they cannot, the numbers are too small.
The prototype menu. It has to use a skill from this year.
| Route | Unit |
|---|---|
| A sewn sample or a mended item | Unit 5 |
| A dish, plated, or a printed costed menu | Units 1 and 6 |
| A scale floor plan on graph paper | Unit 4 |
| A price sheet or budget like the investor reports | Unit 2 |
| An activity kit card for a child | Unit 3 |
| A two-screen sketch of an app, every button labeled | Unit 7 |
| A labeled drawing, mock-up, or written service card | any |
Teacher notes
A drawing counts. A cardboard mock-up counts. A written card counts. Nothing does not count. Every team writes one sentence: "We used a skill from Unit ___: we ___."
Plan in pencil first
- Fill the five panel boxes on the planner
- Who draws what, and by which minute
- Nothing goes on the poster until I sign the planner
Teacher notes
Ten seconds per team to read and sign. This stops the biggest waste in a build day, which is a team drawing beautifully for twenty minutes with no plan.
Build block A. Panels 1 to 3.
- Eleven minutes
- CMO leads layout
- CFO drafts panel 4's numbers large and legible
- CEO writes panel 5
Teacher notes
Walk with the stuck-team protocol. Say nothing about how the poster looks; ask about what is on it.
Build block B. The prototype.
- Ten minutes
- The teacher runs the box cutter, the iron, and the sewing machine. For everybody
- Write your Unit sentence on the back of the planner
- Status report at the bell: what is done, what is left
- * *
DAY 2: Finish, rehearse, review
Teacher notes
Circulate with the tools that need a teacher. Each team gives a one-line status report standing at their table. The teams that are behind hear each other and know it.
Day 2. Your pitch is tomorrow.
- Do now: write the ONE question you hope nobody asks you
Teacher notes
Take four and write them on the board under "Questions we are not ready for." Then: "Somebody on that panel is going to ask one of these. The last forty minutes you have is for making sure the answer exists."
Hard stop at minute 13
- Panels 4 and 5 finished
- Prototype finished. Finished or not
- One index card behind panel 5: the answer to one question from the board
Teacher notes
Announce the minute out loud twice. Walk with tape and a marker and fix the physical problems yourself, so teams are not spending their last minutes on logistics.
Rehearse. Three times. Standing.
- Poster up
- All three of you speaking your own parts
- Timed every time. Write all three times
- Nobody rehearses sitting down
Teacher notes
Say one thing per team, not three. Mark the part that runs long every time; that is the part to cut.
Peer review. Team to team.
- Deliver the whole pitch once, poster up
- The listening team scores the sheet: the six parts, the panels, and our own Lands and Kills list
- Then swap
Teacher notes
Eleven minutes covers both directions for ten teams if you keep the transitions tight. This is worth more than teacher feedback, because the criteria are the class's own.
Two things to write
- One thing to keep, naming something you saw or heard
- One thing to change, with "next time try ___"
- "Good job" does not count
Teacher notes
The question that fixes a vague line: "What did you hear that made you write that?"
Make two changes. Write both.
- "We changed ___ because ___"
- "We changed ___ because ___"
- These two sentences are what separates Meets from Approaching on the pitch
Teacher notes
Say that out loud before the review round starts, not after.
Folder in. Posters on the counter.
- The folder: business brief, customer research, numbers page, planner
- Criteria 3, 4, and 5 get scored from this tonight
- Poster and prototype on the counter, taped down, in running order
Teacher notes
Then the closing line: "Tomorrow there are adults in this room who do not have to be here. They are coming because somebody told them eighth graders in this building built businesses. Be the reason that was true."