It's all about the chair. I keep reading that in blogs all over the Internet. If you want to enjoy your iPad you need a comfortable chair. Even Steve Jobs sat in a chair while demonstrating the iPad at the press conference. Well, I decided to take it a step further and make a chair for the iPad.

This flat-pack design was inspired by the SketchChair software I saw recently.

Step 1: Design

I started out by downloading the SketchChair software. I was able to create a lot of cool chairs, but I could never get exactly what I wanted. The software is a great concept, but it was not quite ready for what I needed. I switched over to my 3D CAD package (Pro/E). I stole a lot of the construction techniques in SketchChair, but modeled it in exact scale in Pro/E. The design only uses four distinct pieces: 2 Sides, 2 Center Pieces, 6 Slats and 1 rear leg brace.

The DXF of the parts is located on my website.

Step 2: CAM Programming

I cut the program using my open laser cutter. You can cut this by hand, but I detail the steps I went through for the curious.

I exported the the drawing of the pieces via DXF to my Vectric Aspire CAM program. Here I duplicated the parts to what I needed and used the nesting feature to fill the cardboard size I had. Normally I would restrain the amount of rotation allowed to keep a consistent grain direction, but this time I let it rotate any any angle (screen says 45deg, but I actually used 5deg). I wanted the finished product to look sort of cattywampus.

Step 3: Fabrication

I laser cut this, but you can cut by hand.

The material I used was a single, used, medium USPS shipping box. This is very light cardboard at 1/16″ thick. I cut it using my open source laser cutter. I ran it at full power at about 40 ipm and a little assist air to stop the fire. I probably could have run faster, but It was my first time with this material.

Step 4: Assembly

I put it together using Elmers No Run Gel School Glue. It gets a lot stronger once all the parts are on and the glue dries. It turned out perfect for what I wanted