Sliding Blocks

Nine Circles

Riddle Box

Hidden Pad

  • Initial design
    This box was, as pictured, designed on binder paper. The actual design proccess largly involved sequentally adding new sliders blocking previous ones.
  • Prototype
    There was no prototype of this design, which turned out to be an oversight. While the design worked fine in theory, the limitations of the materials caused some issues that could have been anticipated with a prototype.
  • Fabrication
    Most pieces of the box were made with a bandsaw and drill press, howver the top plate was cut on a 3 axis CNC router.
  • Product
    The final product works as adverised: slide the pieces around, and turn the center to open the box. There were some material strength issues with the crosslinks on the bottom, and the top plate is slightly warped, but overall I'm proud of the box.
  • Reflection
    A good result for a high school freshman.
  • Initial design
    This projet was largly centered around aesthetic concerns. I simply liked the idea of having nine circles overlapping on the lid of the box.
  • Prototype
    The prototype for this box was a series of paper disks with cutouts and markings. A few different itterations were tried to find a good balance of interactablity and difficulty.
  • Fabrication
    I used a lathe to turn some purpleheart, padduk, and oak to the same diameter, then cut off slices. The lines on top were cut with a hacksaw and a file, then filled with black paint.
  • Product
    The result of this product is a gorgeous lid, placed ontop of a simple plywood box.
  • Reflection
    I'm very happy with how this box turned out. It is aestheticly pleasing (in my opinion), robust, and provides an interesting puzzle.
  • Initial design
    As uasual the idea took shape as a series of drawings in my ideas notebook. The goal here was to make a box that had a riddle as the clue to open it.
  • Prototype
    I tried making a few different prototypes, howver the shapes required proved hard to fabricate by hand.
  • Fabrication
    This locking mechinism is fully cut on a 3 axis CNC.
  • Product
    The final product serves as a functional proof of concept.
  • Reflection
    A lower friction material for the tumblers would hugely improve the user experience.
  • Initial design
    This box also attemps to turn a riddle into a lock, this time with the aid of a dial padlock embedded in the box.
  • Prototype
    There were two prototypes for this project. First a geometric paper design, to demonstrate that the geometry works as necessasary, and second a few itterations of the dial for aestheic purposes.
  • Fabrication
    Most of this box was made using a bandsaw and a drill press; the engravings were done with a vainer chisel.
  • Product
    This is probably the best box I've made so far, both in terms of aesthetics and functionality.
  • Reflection
    There are two minor issues with this box. The mountings are friction fits, which, while effective, is not what I would have prefered. Secondly, the lid's sliding action tends to be a bit sticky.