Cal Poly Humboldt sustainability champion award 2026

The 2026 Cal Poly Humboldt Annual Sustainability Championship Award trophies built in accordance with Lonny Grafman's ENGR 205 class. The design and materials used were picked to specifically embody the overall meaning of sustainability.

Cal Poly Humboldt hosts an annual Sustainability Champion Awards competition in the spring. During this event, nominations are reviewed, and one staff member, one student employee, and one faculty member are recognized for their sustainability contributions on campus and throughout the broader community. Team Crayon Certified worked alongside client Morgan King to design three trophies for the upcoming event in the spring of 2026.

The goal of this project is to design and construct three trophies for the 2026 Cal Poly Humboldt Sustainability Champion Awards. The trophies aim to represent the principles of sustainability by incorporating recyclable materials, repurposed items, and a self-powered mechanical system that eliminates any need for batteries or external power. The project emphasizes the use of environmentally friendly materials to minimize the environmental impact throughout the design and production process. The team interviewed past winners of this event, other award winners, and observed several trophies to gain an understanding of how to make the most unique and durable trophy.

The criteria section goes over each of the criterion and how they are weighted (1-10)

Criteria	Description	Weight (1-10)
Aesthetics	Visually appealing final product	9
% Recyclable Materials	The more recycled/ recyclable materials used is preferred as to prevent it from becoming wasteful landfill in the future	7
Ease of production	Should be possible to replicate in our given time frame	7
Weight	Should be light enough to hold on stage but not so light that it can be easily knocked off a table	4
Base Area	1ft x 1ft x 1ft maximum	3
Cost	Ideally we should be spending as minimal as possible and using what we can from second hand materials or spending money on necessary parts from the $300 client budget	2

Show examples of the prototyping process including what you learned. A great way to communicate your design your process (and to earn extra points!) is to show your early drawings (by hand and digital), failed attempts and photos of tools, materials and your team (or your hands) as you build this prototype.

.

Describe your final product here with image and labels. Start with the biggest overview first.

The 2026 Sustainability Champion Award has a minimalist look to it when closed and looks like a standard wooden box with routing on the edges for a visual appeal.

This product was created out of left over cherry wood that reclaimed from another previous project. The boxes started off as a slap of cherry wood that was planed down to a one inch thick slab and then cut down using a compound miter saw into sections. To ensure that all of the pieces of the box were square we then took those pieces and ran them through a table saw to ensure that the pieces were cut square. Once the sides and bottoms of the box were cut and square the gear systems were measured and then pinned to the walls using bolts. To ensure that the gear would spin we used a two stage epoxy to pin the bolt head to the gear and drilled a hole in the box to allow the bolt to go through where a leftover window crank was fixed to act as our gear drive or crank to operate the scissor lift. The scissor lift is assembled out of 4, 6 inch 1/8 thick 1/2 inch wide pieces of flat bar metal. the flat bars are connected to the box by a bolt that is counter sunk into side walls of the box on one end and is raised and lowered by a gear and spool system. There is two pieces of 80 pound fishing braid that is used as a pully and when the crank is turned in the CLOCK WISE position the spools pull the line tight and draw the bottom of the scissor lift towards the gear system and it raised the platform. Once the user wants to lower the platform back down all that needs to be done is to turn the crank COUNTER CLOCK WISE and the gears spin and release the tension on the lift and the weight of the platform allows the lift to slowly lower. There is a routered and stained lid that can be left open or closed depending on the users choice as shown below.

• 
• 

This section covers the total costs of the overall project.

Item	Amount	Cost per unit	Total
Recycled PLA Filament — Get at [1]	2	USD 27.99	USD 55.98
4’ ⅛ inch metal bar	1	USD 7.99	USD 7.99
Nuts	1	USD 4.99	USD 4.99
Bolts	1	USD 4.99	USD 4.99
Grand total			USD 73.95EUR 63.60 <br />GBP 53.98 <br />CAD 91.70 <br />MXN 1,541.86 <br />INR 5,535.16 <br />

This is how to operate the interactive component of the trophy:

Open the top of the box, the thumb is inside and at the bottom

Spin the crank clockwise on the side of the box to deploy the thumb

Wind the crank in the opposite, counter-clockwise direction to keep the thumb hidden and stored away, Close the lid for storage.

The trophies were built out of wood and with no electrical components so there is not much maintenance to be done. Keeping in mind that they will mostly be for display it would be recommended to dust it as needed to prevent it from appearing dirty or unused.

Daily

• Keep away from direct sunlight.
• Keep dry.

Monthly

• Dust with a soft damp cloth, use mild soap if necessary.

After a lot of brainstorming and discussion with our client, we were able to produce a trophy that met all of our criteria and has an interactive component to it.

If we were to do this project again, we would spend more time working with more than just cardboard in the prototyping phase. It would have also been a good idea to get wood as soon as possible to work with so that we could have spent more time testing what kind of mechanisms would fit the best inside of the box.

Hopefully our product will inspire the future trophy creators to think outside of the box and utilize the materials found locally to encourage

The design of our trophy is meant to be long lasting and not require any/much maintenance under normal display conditions. The product can be stored in any dry place and should avoid being put anywhere where it could get wet as to avoid potential mold growth. It should also be stored in a location that it will not fall off of as to prevent any breakage to the mechanical components inside.

Crayon Certified 2025

• Giselle Chavez
• Connor Chase
• Jaimie Lerma
• Kane Naruishi