Shahab Sagheb

Design Studio I & II

Junior Design Studio I & II
Virginia Tech — Calhoun Discovery Program (CDP)

This studio course is a practice and prototyping study of transdisciplinary, collaborative design processes to address real-world problems in sociotechnical innovation provided by clients from industry, business, government, and nonprofit organizations. Students from participating majors in the program take this class in the Fall semester of their Junior year. Student teams engage in defining and analyzing real-world problems using Systems Thinking and the Collaborative Sociotechnical Innovation Model (CSIM) Four Set framework. Other activities include: identification and analysis of stakeholders; skills discovery and transdisciplinary team building; rapid prototyping; collaborative innovation; evidence-based decision-making; iterative design; troubleshooting.

Studio Structure

This studio uses a distributed model of instruction — each team works directly with a faculty mentor. During Fall 2021 I advised a team working on developing a digital-physical system to monitor the psychological state of workers while performing the complex task of composite ply lay-up. We began with a comprehensive and fast-paced literature review which led to finding the gap in knowledge about the effect of strenuous tasks on cognitive load experienced by workers.

Versatility & Agility

A key pedagogical goal is to help students become versatile and agile. The pace of project development requires high levels of commitment, collaboration, and engagement. Students work with various external partners to gain insight about real-world problems.

System Prototyping

In collaboration with Gregory Garrett (Boeing) we developed a methodology to provide meaningful abstractions of complex production systems. Students used Unity game engine to develop simulations and low-fidelity physical representations. Their final prototype effectively presented the complexities of the composite ply lay-up task that an EEG device (Open BCI) was able to capture.

Presentations

We held a showcase for all students in the Junior Design Studio and Transdisciplinary Fusion Studio I in Fall 2021. The images below are from the team working on EEG Monitoring of Composite Ply Lay-up.

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Publications

"Virginia Tech and Boeing University-Industry Collaboration; use of a 4-Tier Sociotechnical Approach to Reduce Ergonomics Related Hazards." Shahabedin Sagheb, Gregory Garrett, and Robert Smith. Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers Annual Conference & Expo (IISE 2022). Proceedings: 1–6, 2022.
"Project-based development as a model for transdisciplinary research and education." Shahabedin Sagheb, Katie Walkup, and Robert Smith. Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics 20.5 (2022): 17–32.
"Project-based Learning Using the Collaborative Sociotechnical Innovation Model." Shahabedin Sagheb, Amy Arnold, Robert Smith. 14th Annual Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy.
"Coalitional Curricular Design: Industry-Academic Co-creation of Technical Communication Modules." Katie Walkup, Shahabedin Sagheb, and Robert Smith. In Proceedings of the 40th ACM International Conference on Design of Communication, pp. 140–142. 2022.

In Media

Calhoun Honors Discovery Showcase — Virginia Tech