Howard's Hopper

About six months ago, I was tent camping with my wife. I've been thinking for awhile that we might do more camping if we had a trailer. In the campground there was a teardrop as well as a number of pop-ups. We looked at the ones in the campground and when we got home I looked for used pop-ups on Craigslist. After looking about, I decided on a teardrop for the following reasons:

1. Most pop-ups are still tents. Granted, they're nice tents, and they are off the ground, but the roof over the sleeping area is still fabric. The Chalet Alpine pop-ups are a notable exception to this rule, and there were a couple of these in the campground that we visited, but...
2. Pop-ups, even used, can be rather expensive.
3. I wanted something small and light, so I could tow it behind a small car.
4. I thought it would be fun to build one myself.

So, having decided to build a pop-up, I looked around for pop-up designs. There are lots of designs available on-line. You can find some of them available here. But being a doitmyselfer, I decided to invent my own design while I was at it. Here are some initial drawings of my idea.

The frame will be steel. The floor will be 1/2" plywood laminated on top of 2" foam for both stiffness and insulation. The sides will be a lamination of 1/4" plywood on the outside, 1" foam, and 1/8" plywood on the inside. The roof will be a lamination of 1/8" plywood, 1" foam, and 1/8" plywood. I haven't decided what the finish will be. I like the look of wood, but I'm not the best of woodworkers, and paint can hide a multitude of errors. Aluminum also looks nice - it's the "traditional" finish, but I don't know if I want to get than fancy.