Flat Pack Chair

The general Idea for this project is to create a blueprint for a flat pack chair that can be cut out of a wooden board using a CNC machine. The decision to utilize a CNC machine is to reduce costs during mass production as the machine replaces craftsmen. This is beneficial as craftsmen can take hours to make one chair while the CNC machine can cut out several in a fraction of this time.

The supplies that have been given for this project is a 3 by 3 foot piece of plywood that is .75 inches thick. this board is large enough to be used to create a basic flat pack chair that can be mass produced, but not large enough to create budget issues and excess waste.

The issue this project aims to solve is the large lack of seats in the Willow School outside of classrooms. during lunch and other events this issue becomes glaring as most resort to sitting on the ground, but I believe that with the use of CNC we can do better. The end decision was to create a flat pack chair using the CNC machine available in the engineering makerspace. The only restraints that we have in making the flat pack chairs for the school is that they must be able to be cut out of a 3 by 3 foot piece of wood as to not create budget problems and pointless waste.

To start this project i needed to not only learn how to use the CNC machine and Inkscape, but also research flat pack chairs to learn what i need mine to look like and function as. In order to first learn the aspects and functions of CNC machines I watched and took notes on the assigned Sapeoko videos that were given to provide adequate education on how to properly operate a CNC machine. after this I took quite a bit of time researching different flat pack chairs online to get a general idea of where I needed to go with this project. the examples of flat pack chairs that I found are attached to this step.

After adequate research into different types of flat pack chairs I began to design my chair in Fusion360. While at a glance the chair looks rather basic the reality is it is. However, it is cheap, functional, and structurally secure. It can easily blend into a crowd of stools as it should, and can be created via a CNC machine and used daily until full structural decay. This chair while not extremely aesthetically pleasing delivers the most efficiency while using the least possible materials as I could manage.

Although I have not yet had the chance to print out my design using the CNC machine I will, given the soonest opportunity. once the chair is successfully printed I will begin testing the design and function of the chair. this step will include weight testing starting with heavy objects such as dumbbells being used to test the basic stability of the chair, then followed by body weight testing starting with lighter smaller persons then increasing to heavier larger persons to hopefully find the full extent of the chairs durability.