Intern box
As an intern at Fablab I was asked to fabricate a box, where to store my belongings for the duration of my internship here. The lab is not too big and things tend to get spread everywhere making a mess, so, having a personal storage space, it is handy for everybody.
The exercise was also aiming at having a quick kick-off machines learning process.
As my research topic here is about reusing leftovers, I did try to wotk only with "second-hand material". The wood was a leftover from the Hypermud project (installation presented at the last Picnic Festival 2011), while the acrylate pieces came from many different previous chops.
The main problem I had in creating the walls of the box is that I didn't entirely considered the thickness of the plate while making the 2d drawing, so I ended up with a top and bottom that wouldn't fit because of a 6 mm extra width and I had tor re-do them again.
The box includes three main openings made out of acrylate pates inserted in the wood through pockets. In this way I could learn in once both the cutting and pocketing functions of the milling machine.
The side openings have a central hole each, in order to enable the user to easily lift the box.
On one side some acrylate squares indicate the owner's name (in this case mine =), eventually anybody (or any other coming intern) can cut her/his own letters and make a personal box. This detail gave me the opportunity of learning both the cutting and engraving functions of the laser machine at once.
The inside of the box hides a pocket, where to store little objects that would otherwise get lost inside.
All the different parts of the box are snap fits, no glue is used. Eventually the wood composite I used is not very appropriate fo this kind of application as the edges are very rough after cutting, it anyway worked well after applying a bigger tolerance.
