Ecofriendly and Simple Flatpack Sandwichbox

Hi, I'm a Product Design student at the University College of West Flanders (Howest Hogeschool).

This is a flatpack sandwichbox I made for my Design & Prototyping course.

The essence of this assignment was to make a flatpack product that would be:

- Easy to produce

- Cheap to produce

- Ecofriendly

- Clear function

My goal was to make a very simple, but usefull and revolutionary product.

Step 1: What Do We Need?

We will need for this project;

- 1 x ruler and/or protractor

- 1 x pencil or any other fine writing unit

- 1 x polypropylene sheet (450mm x 600mm, 0,8mm thick) Can be acquired at a hobby shop for a cheap price (aprox. € 5,- for 1m x 1m)

- 1 x lasercutting machine (services around town)

OR

- 1 x stanley knife

- 1 x drilling machine

- 1 x computer with Adobe Illustrator or alike and paper printer (optional)

Step 2: Creating (lasercutting)

- If you're using a lasercutter/lasercutting service, the only thing you need is to download the Adobe Illustrator file attached to this step. It can be that lasercutters differ in settings. The red lines are cutting lines, the blue lines are etching lines.

Don't forget to change the settings at the lasercutter to "Material: Polypropylene 0,8mm". Other wise the laserbeam will be too weak - resulting in an etched surface - or too strong - resulting in a burned sheet.

This is the easiest way, but not the cheapest as some lasercutting companies ask a lot of money from private individuals. Also consider using CNC-machines for this technique.

Step 3: Creating (manually)

- If you decide to do this project manually (which will be less precise), you should need a pencil, a ruler, a stanley knife and a drilling machine.

- First you print out the technical dimensions sheet template (PDF file in this step).

- Then you have to cut out the right shapes out of the polypropylene sheet. You can do this by placing the printed out sheet under your polypropylene sheet and copying the red lines of the template. These red lines are the cut lines!

- After that you simply cut out the drawn template out of the polypropylene sheet.

- You should use a drill of 5mm~6mm for the circle shapes on the edges of the "teeth".

- The blues lines should be slightly etched with the back of a knife, enough to make the sheet bendable on those specific lines.

- Bend the sheets on the blue lines.

Step 4: Assembly

- By now you should have two sheets.

- To construct the sandwichbox you just need follow the instructions as shown on the pictures or follow the Youtube video.

- Be sure to put the shorter sheet on top of the longer one for the best result!