HexBox Storage Container
Designed to be manufactured, not just made once, five iterations to a snap fit a CNC could cut in under ten minutes.
Problem
Students and staff needed a compact, durable way to store and organise small components and tools, and needed many of them, which makes it a manufacturing problem rather than a modelling one.
Design statement
Develop a mass-manufacturable storage container produced by CNC milling, chosen for the precision and the speed of repeat production.
Criteria & constraints
- Cycle time, Under 10 minutes of machine time per unit.
- Cost, $5–10 per unit in materials and time.
- Size, Compact: 3" × 3" × 2".
- Quality, An attractive part with a durable, well-fitting cover.
Process
Parametric first. Modelled parametrically in Fusion 360 so a tolerance change propagated through the whole part instead of forcing a remodel.
G-code optimisation. Most of the cycle-time saving came from the toolpaths, not the geometry, reworking the G-code is what got the part under the ten-minute target.
Five iterations. Machined and post-processed on the Intelitek Benchmill 6100, cutting and sanding between versions, tightening tolerances until the lid snap-fit was right.
Results
The cost target was beaten by a wide margin, $1.71 against a $5–10 budget, which is what makes the part genuinely repeatable rather than a one-off demonstration.
Evaluation
Every criterion was met: fabrication time, cost per part, dimensional precision and visual quality. The snap fit and structural integrity came out of the iteration loop rather than the first model, which is the honest lesson of the project.
Reflection
This one expanded what I understood about parametric modelling, CNC manufacturing and tolerance optimisation, specifically that iterative refinement of the code, not just the model, is what produces a production-ready part.
Project PDF
The full design brief and portfolio, as submitted.
Build log
Photographs from the project portfolio.
