Ten Beautiful New Boxes

Last week we assembled another beautiful set of ten “Seattle” Quest Boxes™. We try to keep a small number in stock all the time, because it is a rather lengthy process to get one built and we don’t want to disappoint. Over the last few months we have streamlined the process a bit with our new custom electronics (no more Arduino in these custom boxes), so it’s actually kind of fun to schedule a “build weekend”. Here’s how it all works.

First, we have to get the boxes physically built. Our raw “Seattle” boxes come every so often from the illustrious and immensely talented master woodcrafter Richard DeMeules. Richard builds boxes to our custom specification, with the lid pattern ingeniously designed around the LCD hole so that the display appears as part of the design. Richard also creates a custom mount for the motor, the latching mechanism, and the holes for USB port and the button.

Mounting the Electronics

Once the boxes arrive at our shop in Texas, we get to work programming up and mounting the electronics. This involves burning in our custom firmware into the circuit boards we have made and screwing or gluing the board, the USB port, the GPS module, the display, and the battery pack into the compartment in the lid. Once this is all done and tested, we assign each box a unique serial number and passcode and program those into each box.

Afterwards we do get to do lots of testing. This is the fun part, because it usually ends up with a bunch of kids enjoying a Quest to get ice cream.

Would you like to try one?