Operation Shelf Life

"The objectives and targets always came from us. Who's giving them to him now?" 

"Scary version?  He is."

--The Bourne Supremacy

I have been on a mission, on or off, for...a reeeeeally long time.  In many ways I don't really remember how to live normally.  Cooking, eating, errands, socializing...it all took a back stage to crunch mode, to coding as much as I could stand, every day.

In theory, my next priority should be fixing my body.  Now, the way I'd like to go about doing this is just do some kind of marathon 96 hour exercise session until my body looks like I could be a body double.  However, sadly, human physiology doesn't work that way.  Instead I have to design a very time consuming and labor intensive process and make it part of my lifestyle for the rest of my life.  My first choice would be doing a lifting program, however I don't think my roomate actually wants weights here.  Lifting is going to consume 45 minutes three days a week, and to also have to deal with the possibility of going all the way to the gym only to find that someone is using any one of the 3 different lifting thingys that I need is just too much.  How the hell can I build that into my schedule if I might not even be able to use the equipment I need?  What do I have to have backup lifting days?  There's no fucking way I'm going to stretch a gym visit to an hour and a half just waiting for other people to finish their own workouts.  Man, they should have gyms where you can reserve the power rack...hmm......

For now, I can focus on the nutrition, however, if I can't convince my roommate to be ok with having a power rack in the living room...well I might have to move.

Or, I could just have two apartments.  One apartment for living in, and one with a parking spot and a power rack.


The Idea

I need a way to make moving less of a pain in the ass, though.  One of my ideas that I have had in the back of my mind for the last two or three moves is a special modular shelving unit that is easy to move.  Each shelf is a separate object, and each one has a back that is strong enough to support its contents, so that you can just take the shelves apart, rotate them on their backs, and you basically have a trunk.  Maybe a better way to describe it is that I want traveling trunks that can be rotated and converted into shelves.

The benefit of all this, of course, is that you don't have to ever pack or unpack the shit on your shelves, because its all ready to go.  Might have to stuff some packing paper in there, but I don't mind that.

Hell, maybe I could design shelves with power that you could put computer shit into, so I won't have to pack that either.  Really...everything in my life should fit one of these.  I don't want to do any packing.  Ever.


The Difficult Part

The units need to stack in two completely different ways.  In shelf mode, they need to stack one way, but when they are in trunk mode...well you still want to be able to stack the trunks properly.  So they also need to stack the other way.  This probably makes no sense to you...I'm just writing it here because later there is a confusing diagram that you won't understand without this paragraph.


The Fucking Lids

A key element here is the lid, though.  These things need to have strong lids, because without them you would need to fashion your own lid out of bubble wrap and moving blankets and shit.  Also the movers might refuse to move them unless you empty them.  They don't make you empty a trunk though.  So it needs a lid.

However, I have no intention of storing lids somewhere.  So the lids need to be part of the shelving unit when these things are in shelf mode.  Man I should just call this a transformer or something.  Anyway.  My idea is to store the lids between each shelf.


Latches

In chest mode, the lids need to stay on the chests.  Wait no.  In trunk mode, the lids need to stay on the trunks.  Man I wonder what the different is between a trunk and a chest...anyway.  Fancy latches would be nice, but too difficult in version 1.0.  Instead I'll just have screw holes, or something.


Some Engineers use the Left Hand Rule

Some shifting of contents is a given, and packing paper will be necessary.  It would be nice if all your books and shit don't get completely fucked up, though.  So maybe we need some arrows on the side reminding you which way is up for when you are putting the shelves back together.  You also might want an arrow showing which way is up in trunk mode.  So two arrows on the sides.


Fastener Bullshit

Some kids have died because furniture fell on them.  That's bad.  Most people who make furniture, though, think that I'm going to drill a fucking hole in the wall for an anchor point--that's a fuck no.  However, an anchor point will probably be very important.  I need to design something so that those temporary hook strips can be used (note: they make some for hanging pictures that are fucking amazing).


Handles

The sides need handles, for easy carrying in trunk mode.  Also useful would be handles to help stack and unstack in shelf mode...but those are less necessary.  Unless you want to be able to stack them in shelf mode while the lids are still attached.....

The Design

I finally worked out a basic design.  This is a side view of a single unit in shelf mode...pretending that the shelves dont have sides.  So the back of the shelf is on the left.

The light orange/salmon colored area is the actual shelf.  The four gray pieces show the four places that the lid must fit.  In shelf mode, the lid would go...I guess under the shelf.  However if you are gonna stack another shelf on top, its lid will go on top of the shelf.

The gray thing on the right shows the lid attached to the unit when it is in trunk mode.  The gray thing on the left shows the lid of another trunk fitting into the bottom for stacking (TODO: sex joke goes here).

Potential for Improvement

This is the simplest design that I could think of, and even that was too much to picture in my head.  I had to draw it out just to make it work.  This thing could probably be improved by having two different latching mechanisms:  one for the attaching the lids in shelf mode, and a different one for attaching the lids in trunk mode.  Then the actually shape of the shelf wouldn't be so funny looking.  Or unstable.

But whatever;  I'm a programmer not a furniture designer.

Oh also the idea about having power built in.  Maybe a standard 120 V socket inside the shelf, and a standard universal (computer power) slot on the outside.  Maybe optional USB ports.  Who knows?  Man I could even have a shelf that is just there to provide light.

Next Steps

So..................I'm thinking the next steps is to get a 3D printed prototype (small version).  Normally I would be keen to build something like this out of legos, but legos are actually a very poor medium for this kind of thing because the are not perfect squares in all dimensions.  So I guess I have to draw this up in a cad program (don't ask what I used to make the picture in this post...you don't want to know).

And after I can see the model in my hands, maybe I can pay a carpenter to make one.  Well, two.  Or three at least.  Or I could learn how to work with wood.  Damn I wish I had a wood shop.  Seriously.  I need a house with a gym, and a woodshop, and a lego room obviously.