CSU Research Competition 2025 honorable mention trophies

"Honorable Mention Coasters" is the honorable mention award created by the team Better Luck Next Time. This award is designated for the runner-up after the second-place winners in all categories at the 39th annual CSU Student Research competition. A team from the Engineer 205 class of Fall 2024 from Cal Poly Humboldt created these awards

Background

The Trophy project “Honorable Mention Trophies” was undertaken by a team of four engineering students as part of a task assigned in their Engineering 205 class. The task was to design, create, and manufacture 20 replicated Honorable Mention trophies for the 39th Annual CSU (California State University) Research Competition and for the first time, the host of the competition will be Cal Poly Humboldt. The competition will consist of participants competing in 10 different categories. This competition features two sides the undergraduate and graduate students making it a total of 20 trophies.

The trophies are intended to be given to the honorable mention which comes after the 2nd place holders from each category. The decision to make an Honorable Mention trophy was made to ensure that these top-performing students are acknowledged for their hard work and accomplishments.

Problem statement

The objective of this project is to design, create, and manufacture 20 identical trophies. The trophies will be given at the 39th annual CSU (California State University) Research Competition as Honorable Mentions 10 to the undergraduates and 10 to the graduates. These trophies are designed to replace outdated designs with something better than previous Honorable Mention awards, the team wanted to celebrate the winner’s achievements by making something useful and nice. The team will show the prestige of the event while also showing Cal Poly Humboldt's commitment to the environment, creativity, and excellence of the Engineering 205 class and Makerspace.

Criteria

The Criteria section lists the variable set to be the most important when coming up with the trophy that will be made for the Honorable Mention Category. The table below ranks the criteria (0-10 highest) with a description of each.

Prototyping

First Prototype

Our initial prototype was four simple pieces of wood roughly cut into discs of different size and with a different potential design on each one. This prototype was meant to show us how big we wanted our coasters to be along with the general idea of how we wanted the design on it to look. We knew from the beginning we wanted the coasters to be thicker and larger than the average to not only differentiate it from the average coaster but also to make it more befitting of an award that one may receive.

Second Prototype

Our second round of prototyping had us trying to determine what stain to use on our coasters. We used a selection of eight different stains on four different pieces of wood, each with two different stains, to determine what stain looked best and what our client thought was best. After staining we engraved each piece of wood with a rough sketch of a design which was essentially two circles, the first had the words "Honorable Mention" across the top and "CSU Student Research Competition" across the bottom and the second circle had a sketch of the woods, a river, and a sunset. We decided to engrave this after staining both so that us and our client could decide what stain was best without considering the design and so that we could see the effect the laser would have on something already stained.

Third Prototype

For the third and final prototype we developed we had two finalist stains to choose between that were decided upon by consulting our client and whether we wanted to laser engrave the wood before or after it was stained. We took two pieces of wood each stained with one of our finalist stains and stained half of it then engraved and then stained the other half. We found that generally there was not a great difference between staining before or after if it was sufficiently stained before hand. We also used this opportunity to decide we liked the stain Danish oil best and finalized our decision of staining after with Danish oil.

Final product

The final product consists of twenty identical honorable mention award coasters made from redwood, stained with Danish oil, and then laser engraved. They are half an inch thick and cut into discs 4 inches in diameter from a board of redwood with the laser engraver for maximum accuracy and ease, they are stained and achieve both aesthetic appeal as well as durability and longevity. The design engraved upon them is shown below as 'Final Engraving Design' and is a drawing of a Humboldt landscape consisting of redwood trees, a flowing river with a bear catching a fish, the Pacific Ocean, centered around the setting sun, with clouds and birds in the sky. Drawn by our own Coleman Barker and digitally enhanced by Daniel Reyes.

Construction

Material Preparation

The first step of our material preparation was to plane the Redwood to half an inch of thickness for smoothness and proper sizing. For this, we used a portable planer from the Cal Poly Humboldt wood shop but it can be replicated with either a hand planer or an industrial planer with the same effect.

After we planed the wood we sanded it for maximal smoothness and for best stain adhesion. (Insert Media of it being sanded)

Staining

We first started by staining the planks of wood after planning them in their entirety we stained with 3 amounts of coats of the Danish oil with a gap of a day between coats due to weather. We followed each stain with light sanding before applying another coat of stain. Doing this dual process takes longer but it makes the wood to have a smooth and even coat all around.

Laser Engraving

After the redwood is properly finished, we move it into the laser engraver to cut out the individual coasters and engrave our design upon them. We used a single laser at 100% of power to achieve and at 100%speed. To cut out the wood we passed a laser 9 times around the diameter to make sure it cut thoroughly.

Full Build

The entire build process documented as a short concise video

Bill of materials

Operation

This is how to operate our product. It has two uses first being used as a coaster and the second is a decoration.

1

Place your preferred drink upon it

The coaster yearns for its true purpose to add a drink to it

2

Honorable Mention display

If you would prefer to not tarnish our coaster with a beverage then it can be simply displayed anywhere you would like.

Maintenance

Our coaster is designed to need as little upkeep as possible because of this only two forms of maintenance are required. First of which is a simple dusting using your preferred method, can be done by anyone at any time and if used regularly as a coaster will be mostly unnecessary. Second is the reapplication of lacquer, which due to its hazardous ingredients and flammability should only be done by an adult or carefully supervised minor.

Maintenance schedule

Daily

• Requires no daily upkeep

Weekly

• Requires no weekly upkeep

Monthly

• Dusting; should take no more than a couple of minutes.

Yearly

• Requires no yearly upkeep

Conclusion

Testing results

After many interactions of testing and interviews with faculty and staff the final product was created, and we figured out the ideal dimensions for the award using feedback from various interviews. Team BLNT was also able to find an image that would represent Humboldt with many people interviewed agreeing that the picture was accurate but still unique.

When testing durability team BLNT went with various tests on the award making sure it would last a very long time ideally a lifetime, the team tested the strength of the award by dropping it from various heights with no damage as long as there was no major force applied, and the second test that was conducted was holding up drinks at different levels. The team tested the longevity of the drinks on the coaster by keeping different drinks warm and cold on the coaster for many hours and days and seeing no difference to the award.

Discussion

Team BLNT had mostly positive feedback with the exception being most people thought our design of the coaster was to thick compared to other coasters, and with the team discussion, the conclusion was that the main priority was to make it look like an award. With that in mind, we decided to make it a little less thick keeping it at a 1/2 inch.

Lessons learned

The team learned very valuable lessons while working as a group, we learned how to time manage as a group along with being able to split up tasks and have work done on time. The team also learned the aspect of manufacturing having to do 20 awards, we learned that the process is long and tedious with the chance of having many errors.

Next steps

The following step for this project is to submit them to our client in perfect condition so they can after be awarded in the spring 2025 CSU Research Competition to the awardees of our category.

Troubleshooting

Team

Introduce team and semester in the following format:

• Coleman Barker
• Daniel Reyes
• Edwin Reyes
• Zeke Storm

References