Collaborative Project with Emely-Osuna Villegas

Can we create a sustainable delivery box that is buildable with only raw materials and a laser cutter?

Emely-Osuna Villegas and myself, Jesse Neethling endeavored to find out!

Our research began by sketching out a rough version (seen below) to get an idea of what ours would look like.

The first Iteration

Initially I thought I might start with square shapes and lay them out in a flat orientation and I just made everything uniform, going for 10mm length and width all around. I wanted the red lines to signify potential folding points that the laser cutter could perforate.

After completing the design, it seemed like the iteration would turn out to be just a cube. So it was back to the drawing board. Researching how other delivery boxes were designed seemed like a logical next step!

Usps Delivery box

USPS uses a combination of precise cutting, and folding pieces that interlock without the use of glue. This approach seemed appealing initally but I then realized I was limited by my own engineering skills and technical know how. USPS has a long history of having very well made boxes and utilizing an impressive amount of R&D to make that so.

Amazon delivery box

The Amazon box contrasts the USPS box due to its very simple design. As you can see from my annotations in the second picture, they utilize a tab meant for glue to be applied. This holds the overall structure when the box is folded. Due to its simple design and minimal use of adhesive, I decided for our groups large box, I would draw inspiration from this design!

Iteration 2

This design has obvious similarities to the Amazon delivery box. My intention was create something that could easily be folded along perforations and then a bit of glue applied to secure it. Along the red dotted lines was going to need to be folded, which meant the lines running vertically were going to need to be cut. The challenge of course, was that it was going to need to be laser cut. So I needed some color coordination in order to make this happen.

Tinkercad design

Using Tinkercad, I was able to bring my drawn image into a 3D model of the delivery box. Challenges here were namely designing it in such a way as the laser cutter would be able to distinguish was needed to be cut and what needed to be perforated. I wanted the fold like running horizontally to be fold lines and the vertical red lines to be cut.

top/down image

This top/down image is a great example as to what the laser cutter should be able to distinguish. I researched what parameters the laser cutter would need and it seems blue and red lines indicate cut and scoring respectively. I still needed more information however before I could make this come to fruition. It was time to visit the laser cutting lab!

"To the lab!"

q/a at the lab

Upon reaching ASU Hayden Library Makerspace, I had a great conversation with a subject matter expert on how I could approach this project. First, they guided me in what materials were approved for cutting. Much to my dismay, cardboard was not one of them. The chance of fire was too great to allow. So my only other options were a thin softwood, or paper cardstock which seemed like it would be much too flimsy to hold anything. At this point, Emely and I had checked in on our progress and decided laser cutting day was fast approaching and we wanted all our cutting done before the end of April. A learning opportunity to say the least because every other student at ASU seemed to have the same idea! Laser lab time was a scarce commodity and time was running out on our deadline! Finally, on the Friday the project was due, we managed to carve out some lab time and here is the final product:

final product

Obviously my box doesnt look much like a box. However, even in failure, I learned some valuable lessons. One, was that Tinkcad has different strokes than Adobe Illustrator, which was the program used by the laser lab technicians. The other, was that if the machine can't see the precise stroke in your laser cutting .SVG file, it will cut along whatever line does exist. This resulted in not only fully separating the piece intended to glue the project together, but also in completely missing the lines needed to fold the object. I chose a softwood about 1.76mm thick, and perhaps my choice in material was bad from the start as well. The last lesson I learned through this process, was time management. All of these steps took much longer than anticipated, and working around constraints at an institutional level was not something I factored in. This research project has given me an immense appreciation for the work done all around the world, taking small ideas and making them into tangible, interactable objects we use every day.

Please see my partner Emely-Osuna Villegas' page here, to see her portion of our project!

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