Crate design

[nerd_dad]

I'm just in this for the woodworking, it seems.

Last year, Team 1732 needed (as do most teams) a shipping crate. I found a neat crate design package called Crate Pro and the vendor generously donated a license to the team.

I've put together a relatively generic crate design from inexpensive (big box home store) materials: mostly 3/8" and 1/2" CD exterior plywood, and 1x4 "white wood" framing material. Fasteners were lots of 1" roofing nails (get the five pound box) and glue for the reinforcing cleats, 2" square-drive screws to hold the sides together and some mongo 3" screws to attach the bottom 4x4 skids.

I've attached the diagrams and cut lists produced by the software in both Microsoft Office Document Imaging (.mdi) and TIFF format (.tif).

The finished crate cost a bit more than $100 for wood and another $20-30 for fasteners and glue. We didn't weigh it, but the plan said the crate would weight about 120 lb empty.

Some modifications made after the diagrams were generated:

• Top and bottom were made from 1/2" CD exterior plywood instead of 3/8"
• Roofing nails were used, with glue, to attach the cleats instead of the 1" screws specified
• It ended up being assembled with the reinforcing cleats on the inside instead of the outside of the crate -- it looks prettier that way

Thanks again to the helpful folks at Marquette University's Discovery Lab (where we cut up the wood) and at Crate Pro's creator, Deploy Tech Software .