The Problem:

Crab traps entangle and kill whales, sometimes as many as 16 per year off the coast of California. As a result, government regulations cracked down, hard. The 9 month crabbing season was cut down to just 9 weeks. One commercial crabber we spoke to was pushed to the point of selling his family's boat - the boat he grew up crabbing on - due to these regulations. In response, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) rolled out a new type of gear called "pop-up" traps. These traps eliminate vertical lines by storing the buoy and rope at the seafloor, which only release when the trap is retrieved. While the concept addresses environmental concerns, the available designs are prohibitively expensive (costing up to $15,000 per unit), fail up to 30% of the time (if a trap fails, it's lost to the ocean), and ill-suited for small, independent crabbers who rely on affordable, reliable tools to make a living.

The People:

We began by immersing ourselves in the world of commercial crabbing. We spent days in Half Moon Bay, conducting in-depth interviews with over a dozen crabbers, from small-scale operators working off small boats to crabbers with much larger operations. We spoke with deckhands, boat captains, trap fabricators, regulators from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and engineers from gear manufacturers. These conversations revealed both the technical and emotional stakes of the problem. Crabbers felt that the new regulations threatened their livelihoods and expressed frustration with gear they found unreliable, expensive, or incompatible with their workflow. Slowing operations for the sake of expensive tools (that frequently don't work), simply didn't make sense, especially for small-scale crabbers who don't have the money to spend on the new gear (costs could easily rise into the hundreds of thousands). However, the crabbers all expressed a strong desire to protect marine ecosystems, if given the right tools.

The Prototypes:

We explored over 20 prototype directions, ranging from low-tech spring-release mechanisms to electronically timed buoy releases. We tested inflatable buoy systems, dissolvable fasteners, crank-based spools, and even an upside-down trap that flipped open on command. My team built CAD models for 3D printing, and created dozens of rough prototypes out of PVC, wire, and hardware-store components. We engaged crabbers in ongoing feedback loops, often bringing new iterations back to the docks and modifying them in real time. Each round helped us refine for key criteria: durability, ease of use, cost-effectiveness, and compliance with regulations.

The Solution:

Our final design is a patent-pending, low-cost pop-up crab trap retrofit that enables existing traps to comply with whale-safe regulations. The system is affordable (under $250), effective, and increases re-spooling time on the boat by over 100%. The exact design can't be shared due to patent regulations (filing takes a while), but the design prioritizes reliability in harsh ocean conditions and simplicity of maintenance, so crabbers aren’t forced to rely on fragile electronics or expensive proprietary systems.

By rooting the design in the lived experiences of the people most affected, we created a solution that not only protects marine life but also supports the sustainability of coastal fishing communities. The project won Stanford’s Robert H. McKim Award, is supported by the Head of the Whale Safe Project in the CDFW, and we are now exploring pathways to scale the device through licensing with gear manufacturers.