After learning about boxes of undetermined size as well as kreg jigs, clamps, and connecting wooden corners with screws, we were charged with creating a wooden box of our own. I started by drawing a rough sketch with the design of a box of undetermined size in mind:

I chose to make a 10 inch cubed box because I was very worried about being able to get my hands inside the box to screw it together. Thus I made it as large as I could given the constraints of the assignment

Next, I asked a lab tech to help me to find a piece of wood. We found a relatively large and uniform piece, which I marked up to be cut into 10 inch pieces:

The consequences of my large dimensions were that I ran out of wood before I could cut out the fifth side of the cube, so I chose a third, less uniform piece of wood for the bottom.  I found that these pieces fit together in the design I had in mind:

My next step was to practice using the kreg. It had been a few days since class and I wanted to make sure not to ruin my good cuts of wood:

Once I was confident in my kreg skills, I drilled one hole on each the edge of each wall of the box:

I planned to use these holes to drill the walls into the floor of the box. When I put my box together, however, I found that some of the holes were going to be altogether too close to the next edge of the box.

My fears about getting my hands inside the box to screw it together were magnified by this mistake so I chose to create holes in the middle of each wall to stop these issues. From here I started clamping my wood together and inserting my screws.

I chose the screws that were suggested by the kreg manual for 3/4 inch wood: (1.25 inch):

Once I had used the kreg to connect all 4 walls, I decided to screw the walls to each other using the pilot hole + screw method. I had a few issues using enough force to get my pilot holes in, and I had more issues than I care to admit remembering to switch the direction from backwards to forwards on my hand drill. Lastly, the battery pack on my hand drill died halfway through one of my screws. Ultimately, I had a few nicks due to my blunders which can be seen:

But ultimately I was able to boast at this point that I had a full, functional box. I routed it with a very small radius in order not to come close to the nails. While this went well generally, one side splintered a bit:

After this, I sanded the whole box, which helped a lot and made the whole box look much nicer. At this point, I was ready to paint it. I felt this would give it the best, most uniform finish, and also would hide the screws on the outside of the box. After several coats, I was ready to be finished with my box:

 

The cost of the box can be calculated as follows:

3/4  inch Wood: 30$ (home depot)

Nails: 10$ (amazon)

Spray paint: 4$ (amazon)

Tools: 50$ (txrx makerspace lab in houston)

My time: 40$ (~4 hours at 10$/hour)

Total: 134$