During the Covid lockdown the demand of home gym equipment skyrocketed as gyms, sports hall and parks were closed. Therefore, I built a squat rack for me and my family to stay healthy through lockdown. The main requirement for the gym rack was to be modular, so that it could be easily taken apart and stored when not in use. To meet this requirement, the two halves of the gym rack were joined by a bar, which doubled as a pull-up bar. Additionally, the design needed to incorporate safety measures should the user drop the weight, so a safety bar was added on either side. The overall design was modelled using SketchUp and built using hand tools such as drills and saws.
One of the biggest issues during manufacture was drilling the many holes into the upright columns. The power drill available was not powerful enough to drill through the wood using the 27mm drill bit chosen, so concentric smaller holes needed to be drilled. Unfortunately, this made it difficult to centre the drill bit and difficult to drill straight through the wood. Ultimately, this made it difficult to add/remove the metal hooks and safety bars as there was a lot of friction between them and the wooden frame. Also, I designed the structure with no knowledge of structural mechanics, so I did not consider buckling or bending which meant I did not know the maximum safe limit for the weight.
However, it succeeded in meeting the initial requirements and fulfilled its function, so I think it was a successful project.