Students

Andrew Slade
Andrew Slade
Computer Science, 2019

Project Description

The vast majority of students at Princeton live on campus for all four years — sharing common rooms, bedrooms, and bathrooms with other students. And unfortunately, when it comes to student housing, Princeton isn’t known for its spacious living conditions. While this often pushes students to make the most efficient use of their space, this can become especially difficult when students wish to invite others to their rooms, whether for social events or casual get togethers. My project addresses this need by creating a space-efficient social piece: a collapsible counter.

The counter is able to fold in half, allowing students to place it underneath their bed, desk, or in their closet when not in use. The primary feature of my counter is its collapsible capabilities. Imagine a small wooden counter that was split in half horizontally and then put back together with hinges that connect the top and bottom halves. That’s essentially how my counter operates, but with a removable countertop that secures the upper-half of the counter when it’s in the upright position. I hope my collapsible counter inspires Princeton students to find other ways to make the most of their space-limited dorm rooms, ultimately improving the quality of life for Princeton students.

Technical Background

The two biggest challenges to building collapsible furniture are 1) creating a painless collapsing/reassembling mechanism and 2) ensuring the stability and strength of the furniture. The collapsible counter overcomes these challenges by relying on two key technologies: the hinge and the “edge in groove” joint. To begin, a hinge is a mechanical joint that allows two objects to swing across a common axis, allowing only a limited range of motion. Each hinge is made up of three components: the pin, knuckles, and leaves (Marlboro Hinge). See Figure 1 for a visualization. The two leaves connect to each object, and each leaf has a knuckle — a set of hollow cylinders in which a pin can be inserted. The knuckles of both leaves cleanly align, allowing for the insertion of a pin that both holds the knuckles together and allows the leaves to rotate around a common axis. For any woodworking project that is seeking limited rotation between two pieces of wood around a fixed axis, the hinge is the ideal joint; and hence, the joint that’s used to connect the top and bottom halves of the counter’s sides. This allows the top-half of the counter’s sides to fold downwards while the bottom half are fixed together via wood glue — allowing for a painless collapsing/reassembling.

Because the sides of the counter fold downwards, the project cannot support a countertop that’s permanently fixed to its sides. This is where the second key technology, the “edge in groove” joint, comes in to play. The “edge in groove” joint is a unique joint between two boards where the edge of one board fits into the groove of another board, creating a flush and sturdy connection between the two boards. This technology is applied to the collapsible counter, similarly to Figure 2; however, the connection is between perpendicular boards instead of parallel boards. “Edge in groove” joints are most useful when seeking a strong yet removable connection between two pieces of wood (Rodriguez); and, for this reason, is the method in which the countertop is connected and secured to the counter’s sides, when they’re in the upright position. With regards to creating the groove, a 3D carving machine (i.e. X-Carve) was used to carve the exact dimensions of the groove into the countertop.

“BEARING HINGES DIAGRAM.” Palladium Products, Palladium Products: The Hardware Specialists, www.palladiumproducts.com/bearing-hinges.html. (Figure 1)

“Home Design Ideas.” Home Design Ideas, Glen Oaks Pathology, glenoakspathology.com/beveled-edge-wood-flooring. (Figure 2)

Rodriguez, Mario. “All About Tongue-and-Groove Joints.” FineWoodworking, Fine Woodworking, 13 Nov. 2018, www.finewoodworking.com/2005/09/12/all-about-tongue-and-groove-joints.

“Standard Hinge Terminology.” Marlboro Hinge, Marlboro Manufacturing, Inc, www.marlborohinge.com/hinge-terminology.

Design Drawings

Fabrication Process

Final Result