Matthew Gerber | Fab Academy 2016

Final Project Concepts

CNC Bookshelf Chair with Lights and Music Sensors

BRAINSTORMING

The process of designing and coming up with a final project went through several iterations and brainstorming sessions about what would be interesting to make while satisfying the requirements of the final project. My thoughts fleeted between drones, a jacket that has a keyboard on sleeve to play music, to a digital counter to track the number of visitors to Fab Lab each month displayed to a large LED display over the doorway to visually make a statement about how many visited the lab while finally ending up on a CNC chair that is also a bookshelf.

As an avid reader who enjoys reading in the evenings, I want to design a CNC chair that integrates book storage, lights and music into the design. This would solve the issues of storage of books, lighting and music and integrate it into the chair itself. I envision that I would create the seat back and seat cushion while embroidering a logo onto the chair seat back. It would also be fashionably used and make a functional piece of furniture for my family.

SCOPE

• The CNC chair needs to be flat as flat objects are much easier to design since the design needs to be drawn in two dimensions.
• The CNC chair needs to consist of horizontal and vertical elements only.
• It is important to maximize the parts of the chair on as few 4 x 8 sheets of plywood as possible to minimize cost. I estimate it cost around less than $400 to build the entire CNC chair including the electrical components.

CONCEPT

• The CNC chair will consist of horizontal and vertical elements using tension and compression to keep the chair together. I will use woodglue to reinforce the the joints.
• The CNC chair must have storage for books like the image below.

MATERIALS

• Popular 4 x 8 sheets of plywood.
• Software for modeling like Solidworks.
• Fabric and stuffing for seatback and seat cushion.
• Microprocessor, processors, speakers and powersupply for speaker system.
• Led lights for lighting and power supply