Okay, so here's our driver's station. IMHO, it's really pretty and functions well. It got made several years ago by my sister and one of our alumna/mentors. It's basically a metal frame with 1/4 inch thick acrylic for face plates with cutouts for handles, 4 joysticks, and the classmate. One of the joysticks has been replaced with "peef" a box of buttons with LEDs that we made. The classmate velcros in. It's not too heavy, and we've attached straps for carrying! Unfortunately, with the new DS measurements this year, we had to have 2 inches sawed off one end at our first regional, but you could design around that since you know... >.>
http://www.team2399.org/?attachment_id=654
we CNCed it i believe, so perhaps you wouldn't want to use acrylic if you're putting on together by hand. or maybe not use acrylic in general, because it can shatter, but we haven't had any problems with that so far.