Interdisciplinary Collaboration
The third key competency that I have developed is interdisciplinary collaboration (B&E). Knowing that I want to expand my work across multiple disciplines (material science and industrial design), I utilized the opportunities presented to me to become an effective interdisciplinary collaborator. For this competency I leveraged interdisciplinary frameworks, utilized team building attitudes, and taught myself to take over skills from other disciplines to become successful at collaboration.
Learning to work across disciplines (B&E) mostly relates to communication and professional competencies but can bring me valuable knowledge in other expertise areas in which I am no true expert. Take for example math data and computing, through working with mechanical engineers I was able to perform finite element analyses, and failure mode effect analysis (MD&C) on our designs, bringing an extra level of viability to our work.
During my semester at Georgia Tech, I participated in their final bachelor project called capstone design. This project was a collaboration between their Mechanical Engineering department and the Industrial Design department. This project thought me how to utilize engineering approaches to augment a design process. I also learned how to manage a team where different background would prioritize different elements of the project. It takes effort to make engineers understand design choices, and designer see the value of analysis.
Attempting to work with mechanical engineers
My competency in interdisciplinary collaboration was most developed through my honors project, TreeD. This project thought me how to leverage interdisciplinary skills, how to manage collaboration, and how to seek out skillsets that are lacking from a team. TreeD is an honors project for which we researched ways to 3D print with 100% wood. The initial team consisted of architects, Industrial designers, mechanical engineers, and electrical engineers. We quickly realized that to be successful at making an extrudable wood paste we had to recruit chemical engineers onto the team. We did this by becoming a student team and hosting recruiting events.
Discussion with Dr. Venkiteswaran
My honors and student team
My competency in interdisciplinary collaboration came together during my FBP, where I was able to utilize the expertise of the Dr. Venkiteswaran, a mechanical engineer. Dr. Venkiteswaran guided my understanding of magnetism and programming (MD&C) (T&R) required to make magnetic soft robots. I was then able to augment his engineering perspective with my design skills, allowing me to explore novel structures (C&A). This project also taught me how to reach out and communicate with experts of other backgrounds (B&E).