If you didn’t see the intro to this project, check out Part 1. Briefly, I want to make this:
Now that I’ve categorized all the items for my travel needs, I need to measure the dimensions to determine the smallest travel case I can purchase.
Here’s that list of items again.
4 pairs of socks
4 T-shirts
4 pairs of boxer shorts
1 dress shirt
1 Toiletry Bag
2 pairs of pants
1 pair of workout/sleeping pants/shorts1 Phone charger
1 set of keys
1 book, which I probably won’t read
1 winter hat & 1 pair of gloves for colder seasons/locales
or,
1 swimsuit for warmer seasons/locales
Out comes the measuring tape. Who’s ready to see picture of my socks??
(note: my apologies for the unreadable numbers on the tape measure. The close up resolution on my camera is probably worse than the one on your phone. So I put the dimensions on there (using Inkscape) for clarity’s sake. Click on the picture if you want to enlarge. For some strange reason.)
Here are the dimensions in table form.
| Length (inches) | Width (inches) | Depth (inches) | # | Volume (in3) | |
| 4 boxer shorts | 6 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 144 |
| 4 pairs of socks | 8 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 192 |
| 4 T-shirts | 11 | 8 | 1.5 | 4 | 528 |
| 1 dress shirt | 11 | 9 | 4 | 1 | 396 |
| 1 Toiletry Bag | 9 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 180 |
| 2 pairs of pants | 11 | 11 | 2 | 2 | 484 |
| 1 pair of workout/sleeping pants/shorts | 11 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 220 |
| 1 Phone charger | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 12 |
| 1 set of keys | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 1 book, which I probably won’t read | 6 | 9 | 2 | 1 | 108 |
| 1 winter hat & 1 pair of gloves for colder seasons/localesor, 1 swimsuit for warmer seasons/locales | 8 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 128 |
| Total volume | 2396 |
So if I had the ability to mash all my objects up into a perfect rectangular prism, I would require 2396 cubic inches. This begs some additional questions:
- How much is 2396 cubic inches? I have no idea what that looks like. Is that a lot? That sounds like a lot.
- You can’t just mash everything up. Won’t we need a bit extra space to organize it all?
The answer to the first question is found like this. One cubic foot is:
So my stuff is this many cubic feet.
If you’ll remember from Part 1, the United Airlines website lists the maximum dimensions of carry-on luggage as 9″ x 14″ x 22″. Or,
At this point, I’d like to reiterate my skepticism over those listed dimensions. Let’s address that skepticism right here with a suitcase I’ve taken as a carry-on before, that I suspect exceeds those listed dimensions. Here’s my suitcase that I’m always able to carry on.
Hmm. So I need a suitcase that’s at least 1.4 cubic feet for my stuff (but probably more), but probably smaller than 1.875 cubic feet. That seems like a pretty tight range. Moreover, I’ll probably need more than 1.4 cubic feet based on my irregularly shaped objects. I’ll address this is Part 3, in which I brush off my Tetris style stacking skills. Stay tuned!
Until then, please enjoy this adorable video of my cat emerging from my suitcase. She does not count as carry-on luggage (she does, however, dramatically improve this blog’s SEO).
emergent math 