The last two years we have been tapping a few box elder trees in our yard and making syrup. We just use a couple food grade 5 gallon buckets to collect the sap, with plastic tube connectors as taps.
It is amazing how much fluid moves up and down the tree trunks. Then we just boil off the liquid in a turkey cooker. We go through a tank of propane to get a quart of syrup, so not the most cost-efficient way of doing it... But it is still fun.
Once it is boiled off most of the way, we take it inside and finish it off on the stove-top. You have to boil the syrup until it boil at 7 deg F above the boiling point of water.
