CASA Student Farm modular storage

The Modular Storage Solution is the working storage system designed by Team NoVowels for the CPH Student Farm shipping container in the Arcata Bottoms in Arcata, California. Designed and created in the fall semester of 2025 and designed to improve on the already existing storage in the CPH Student Farms storage container, the modular storage solutions maximizes capacity and utility.

The CPH Student farm is a recent addition to campus property. As of Fall 2025 it currently is only run by Reneé Byrd and some additional assistants working on the farm itself. It is currently projected that by Fall 2026 there will be a Critical Agriculture program at Cal Poly Humboldt and the farm will see much more use in the near future. With this in mind, the storage system currently in place on the farm needs to be revamped in order to accommodate for this projected growth. The project given to Team NoVowels is to design and construct internals for the storage container already on the farm that allows for less stress on the organizational system while the farm begins to see constant and regular use.

The objective of this project is to act as a optimized, effective and accessible storage solution for the CPH Student Farm. The design solution will act as a long lasting storage system in the storage unit structure.

Criteria	Description		Weight (1-10)
Effective	How well does it fulfill its role as a storage system for the farm		10
Modular	How reusable and multi functional the solution is		7
Sustainable	the renewability and eco efficacy of the materials used on the project		5
Accessible	How well any student on CPH farms is able to operate the storage solution		6
High Capacity	The ability to hold as much of any item required on CPH Farms		8
Weather Safe	The integrity of the Storage Solution regarding weather and weather conditions that could compromise materiel		7

We created two prototypes in the making of our project. Firstly we created a 1:12 scale model of the entire shipping container with the purpose of demonstrating what we believed to be the optimal layout of the storage within the container. We then went to work on a 1:6 scale model of the shelf designated for tool storage (figure 5.3) while waiting for approval on our first design, and had both okayed as they were from the client.

• Prototyping Images
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Our final product ended up being a tool rack that is built to have a function of a vending machine. When the tool in front is taken the next one should go forward and be ready to be taken next. It has three sections to hold shovels, rakes, and hoes.

To build the tool rack we took nine 2x4x12 planks and three 2x4x8 planks of wood and cut them to four 4 ft pieces, six 6 ft pieces, and six 8 ft pieces.. From there we put all the 6 ft and 8 ft pieces together, to look like a hallow square with a 18 inch overhang, making six of those, before taking moving them to the farm to finish building our structure. Once at the farm we took two of the squares and lined those up with one of the 4 ft pieces to keep it in place and secured them with screws. We then secured the other four so that we had made to have the base one. After those were in place we then used two more of those 4 ft planks to secure the back and one more on the front.

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Below is a list of materials we used and how much it would have cost. Our real price came out to $31.98 since the wood was donated and did not contribute to our overall cost.

Item	Amount	Cost per unit	Total
2x4x12	9	USD 30.00	USD 270.00
2x4x8	3	USD 15.99	USD 47.97
Screws	2	USD 15.99	USD 31.98
Grand total			USD 349.95EUR 300.96 <br />GBP 255.46 <br />CAD 433.94 <br />MXN 7,296.46 <br />INR 26,193.76 <br />

The material used to Create the Modular Storage Unit is mostly comprised of cured wood. Anyone on CASA Farm who is actively using the storage solution should be capable of maintaining the storage solutions with maintenance tasks such as Insuring organization, weekly Dusting, Monthly checking for warping due to weather, and yearly re-coating.

Daily

• Ensuring Organization

Weekly

• Dusting

Monthly

• Check integrity/warping

Yearly

• Re-coat/Re-finish wood panels.

As we did testing on our prototypes our solution did seem to work. The structure seemed to fit in the storage container and also seemed to dispense tools as we hoped. Our only issue was figuring out how to best have it at an angle to dispense tools.

If we were to do this project again we'd have the rack at more of an angle to better dispense the tools. We'd also try to streamline and decide on the smaller aspects of a design earlier as those add up.

The next steps for this project as it goes forward would be to figure out other ways of organizing and setting up a system to store all the materials and tools the farm may gain over its years of operation.

This is only how to troubleshoot basic operation. For complex issues, the solution might just say something like contact ________. It should be a table in this format:

Problem	Suggestion
Example issue	Example solution or suggestion
Does not turn on	Make sure it is plugged in
Another issue	Etc.

• Gabriel Gore
• Paxton Dold
• Valeria Valle
• Leo Klopf