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Cooper Union Students Re-Think the Cardboard Box with Their Rapid Packing Container

By Rain Noe - December 24, 2013

in Materials | Object Culture

While we looked at Better Packages, Inc.'s cool automatic tape-dispensing machine, a pair of Cooper Union engineering students are hoping to get rid of packing tape almost entirely—by redesigning the box. Henry Wang and Chris Curro have developed the Rapid Packing Container, a re-think of the cardboard box that aims to make it easier to open, easier to seal, and easier to re-use. Have a look:

Since posting their box design to Reddit yesterday, the video hits have reached nearly half a million—while the Reddit community's criticisms have been robust. Everyone from airline employees, Fed Ex package handlers and UPS delivery drivers have sounded off, expressing skepticism that the RPC's design can stand up to the rigors of real-world shipping; everything from the temperatures in the back of the truck melting the wax seal to the packages being opened by accidental jostling have been cited.

Still, we hope that Wang and Curro aren't dissuaded by the criticisms, but instead take advantage of the input they've received from industry vets. Their concept is sound even if the design needs work, and after all, who really knocks it out of the park on the first try?

Ex-UPS employee jonboy345 offers some sound advice:

I suggest you contact a major shipping company to test your design in a real life setting in the scale of thousands. For the best results you should test it during the time between Thanksgiving and New Years, shipping's peak season.

Tell them you want their employees to be rough with the packages. Because I can assure you guys in the hubs don't give a shit about the packages 95% of the time.

Not trying to dissuade you or your colleague, just want you to be aware that small scale testing of something like this in a setting outside of a UPS Ground Hub or the like could be terribly misleading and not representative of the extreme abuse these boxes will have to endure while being shipped.

Additionally, an employee of the Packaging Science Dynamics Lab at RIT has offered to provide testing facilities. Stick with it, fellas!

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Na-sayer

10 years ago

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Ah, no....

There are too many problems with this design for me to address at this point.

1 Draw a perimeter around this blank and note the scrap material. Someone has to pay for this. This is not an efficent use of material.
2. Also, the compression performance ratio to square footage of material looks awful.
3. Die cut box requiring someone needing to purchase tooling. A RSC requires no tooling.

Ther are plently of designs out there simular to this, and there is a reason not many people use them, see my points listed above.
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mr.ed

10 years ago

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There is a delicate balance between A: easy carton opening and B: package integrity in transit. This is complicated by C: The use of natural paper materials, the source of which can't be guaranteed to be consistent within even a pallet of material, and changes with the weather, and D: Cutting die and press wear, which creates problems with A: above.
Unless there's a really solid product inside to ensure firm contact between the two sealing surfaces, the package can pop open.
You will need very few cartons falling open in transit before the old tape gun gets pulled out to make sure the shipments arrive safely. You might need a Rule 41 exemption for a tape-free design, especially with certain products shipped.
This from a packaging engineer and designer of over fifty years experience.
There's more to this than you might realize!
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Jamie Sildar

10 years ago

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My dad grad from CU in 1944 and went staight to Grumman. He would ,think this was the coolest. I am so impressed and you guys should reinvent the container industry....hope you get a patent.....congrats
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