Laser Cut Board Game Inserts

Board games often come with lots of components and precious little in the way of organization. People will sometimes use bowls, plano boxes, custom 3D printed inserts, foam card dividers, and other imaginative solutions. My favorite site for fast fabrication of boxes is MakerCase, and it recently added support for boxes with curved corners and dividers. So I made a set of custom boxes for a rather complicated board game called Agricola, in which you build a small farm while trying to ensure your family stays fed. You win by having the most developed farm and a healthy family. It is fun but an organizational headache because all the parts come in 15 ziplock baggies, which all need to be used every game.

9 May 2023: just found that Boxes.py has a free Agricola insert for the latest edition!

You will need a laser cutter, a sheet of 1/8" (3 mm) plywood, and some wood glue. I used a Speedy360 laser cutter (shown above, though not cutting this particular project).

I based my design on this 3D printed setup, which I found via image search. I measured the box and parts I had and did a few calculations to make 4 different MakerCase boxes, which I edited in Fusion360 to just keep the bits of the boxes I needed and to add internal dividers. The resulting .eps file is attached, if you want to make your own (though note that this version of Agricola is no longer available).

In hindsight, I would have skipped the editing of the boxes and just used MakerCase's divider tool. It's perfect for board game inserts. Just make sure the height of your box(es) exactly fills the game box: that way even if the game gets inverted the pieces will all stay in their correct places.

A pretty quick process - laser cutting is fast and reliable compared to 3D printing for making boxes. I have a pretty cheap 3D printer and it is really not great at printing large flat objects like boxes - the prints tend to warp and fail far more often than what I get when printing small complicated objects.

Glue the boxes together as shown. If you need clamping, masking tape and/or rubber bands are fine. I left them to dry overnight, then gave the outsides a quick sand to remove any squeezed-out glue and laser soot.

Fill the boxes with the components, and enjoy getting rid of the plastic bags! This design means you simply lift the trays from the box and use them directly during the game. Big improvement from the tedium of emptying and reloading the bags. While this design is specific to this specific edition of one board game, the idea is generally useful to any board game or similar organizational problem you might have.