In my past posts, related to the multitouch project, I have described a lot of crucial components, mentioned in every multitouch how-to guide. The packaging of it all is where different reports vary the most. In this post I am going to briefly describe our process of making the "box".

Very early in the planning phase we have realized that we do not possess the necessary skills of craftsmanship to make anything beyond the bare minimum. While we played with the double pyramid casing idea in the initial designs, we settled for a normal box latter on. The framework was med out of aluminum, bounded together by special plastic corner segments (I guess one can buy them in any larger hardware store). On this aluminum structure we then attached thin wooden plates. To make the entire thing more usable, we also put small wheels on the bottom of the box, so that the whole thing is easily movable.

But adding walls introduces another problem. By cutting off the airflow the interior can get very hot. Inside there is a projector, a computer and a few other electrical components, all of them producing a lot of heat. To ensure air circulation we have installed four 12 cm chassis fans on the wooden plates. At this time we are not sure if this will be enough, but adding some more is pretty easy (well, it involved a lot of drilling).

Several images of this part of the process are already in my gallery.