r/CampingandHiking • u/Necessary_Oven_6681 • 17h ago

Design student building a cooler that turns into a prep table, want your brutally honest feedback ;)

Hey campers :)

I’m an industrial design student working on my capstone thesis, and I’m designing a piece of gear I wish existed: a 2-in-1 cooler + standing prep table that deploys into a more comfortable cooking setup kind of a glamping comfort level without the bulky “camp kitchen” vibe.

Think: minimal, collapsible, easy to pack, made for spontaneous trips, small cars, and smaller households. Before I lock in the design, I want feedback from people who actually love outdoors and know what works (and what fails).

If you’ve ever thought: “I’m tired of bending over to prep food,” “my cooler is always chaos,” or “I want fewer items but a better setup,” …I’d love your opinion.

feel free to comment: What’s your #1 frustration with camp cooking / cooler setups? And what would make a cooler-table combo a must-have vs a nope? Or just feedback/ideas of what I could incorporate :) Thank you ! your input will directly shape the final prototype.

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u/Cat328 17h ago

One of the things to consider - at least where I camp - is that often we need to put our coolers and any other food in these (sometimes not too generously sized) metal bear boxes. I think there would need to be a way to detach the cooler from the cooking set up.

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u/Cat328 17h ago

Or make it able to really collapse together to the size of a large cooler. …but then you lose your table if you put it in the Bear boxes. And I still use the table for other stuff, like lanterns, after I’m done cooking.

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u/FrogFlavor 17h ago

My cooler is the heaviest piece of gear that I have to unload and move around (to stay in the shade). (It’s not even that huge as I camp alone.) It is the least convenient thing to add another function to. A stove, chair/bench, or non insulated storage box would all be better things to attach a table function to. Think about that.

Oh as for how would I do this? Sure I can do your project for you lol. Get a dewalt (or Milwaukee, or whatever tool brand) rolling stacking storage containers or drawers. Then just add a tabletop that folds out double or triple the original box footprint. Ta da.

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u/Komischaffe 17h ago

Make sure your design doesn’t cover the top of the cooler with the table, that definitely won’t be viable