BUTTERFLY PHONE STAND

I designed this collapsable butterfly phone stand for Stanford ME 102: Foundations of Product Realization.

The Goal

Laser cut a phone stand with two states: one compact state (phone stand must fit in a 1” x 4” x 5” box), and one open state (where the stand can hold your phone). The phone stand should use at least one revolute joint to move from the compact state to the open state.

Design Process

I decided on a butterfly design that opens like a book because… I thought it would be super cool! After sketching my design and performing statics analysis on it, I cut and taped a prototype out of foam board.

Then, I built out my phone stand in Fusion. The stand contains two wings that attach to the main dowel pin with laser cut hinges, and two antenna legs that connect to the wings with smaller hinges and dowel pins. The antennae link together with a hook to provide a stable base for the phone.

I ran a test cut on the laser cutter to decide on tolerances, and I cut my pieces on birch ply with a 0.005 inch offset. Lastly, I sanded my pieces and assembled them.

Bill of Materials