Tic-tac-toe Box

A photo of me and a friend playing ultimate tic-tac-toe in the forest with plastic tokens on a wooden box with a metal lit.

I have gone to the same sleepaway camp since I was ten. Three summers ago, I met a new friend there, and one of the things that we bonded over was a shared interest in Connect 4 strategy and ultimate tic-tac-toe, and the broader world of m,n,k-games.

A photograph of the tic-tac-toe box in progress. There are sides, but no bottom.

A photograph of the tic-tac-toe box in progress. There are sides and a plywood bottom.

A photograph of the finished box. It is covered with a metal lid, and there is a nine-by-nine plastic grid on top.

A photograph of the finished box. The lid has been removed, revealing a metal bottom with plastic token magneted down.

This project is pretty simple: it is just a poplar hardwood box with some magnetic tokens that I designed and 3D printed. I wanted the box to be nice to look at and easy to carry around. Despite its simplicity, I think that the box came out very nicely. My miters fit together very well, and the Danish Oil finish has a very nice color that complements the metal.

The box is also a reminder of the many happy memories I have of summer camp.

A CAD rendering of the tokens: an X, a circle, and a triangle. They are semi-transparent, which reveals internal pockets.

A screen shot of Fusion360, which shows the game board. There are text entry boxes for the width and height parameters.

The pieces are designed with pockets inside of them so that magnets can be inserted during the print, and permanently locked inside. The game board is also parametric, so I was able to use the same design to make three different boards, a 9x9, 6x7, 6x6.