Cardboard chair process video

Furniture & Lighting

Chris Connors

Making things is the best way to learn about our world.

This process animation makes it look easy. There should be a zillion variations on the design of a chair like this. It looks like a good way to work with the concepts of compression, tension, torsion and shear, with students, as they design and build their own furniture. Have you used cardboard furniture design/build projects in a classroom setting? Let us know in the comments.

4 thoughts on “Cardboard chair process video”

sean mcbeth says:

January 24th, 2010 at 10:11 am

I just recently built a coffee table out of a box that held the parts for a desk that I’m using as a bar. Most of the work was cutting the cross beams and taping them into place. The shape was largely complete already, I just had to cut the “legs” out of the insides of the “lid” of the box.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/37YSzHFOmautqvufYSj0FQ?authkey=Gv1sRgCMv9-cGIpLOIlgE&feat=directlink

I covered the assembled work in strips of duct tape to give it a more water proof finish.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/XvboSEpJBL48-RaFveGfsw?authkey=Gv1sRgCMv9-cGIpLOIlgE&feat=directlink
jeff-o says:

January 25th, 2010 at 8:27 am

I had a similar project in high school. We were given a few sheets of cardboard and told to build the strongest chair we could manage using only tape. Our group’s chair fared the best, though it did give a little when the teacher tested it by repeatedly sitting down as hard as he could.