Wooden Laptop Stand Design
Ideation
For this week's assignment, I chose to play around with cardboard pieces first.
I tried to grasp the basic structure of a laptop stand using minimalist shapes.
Since the final design should fit into a 30 x 27cm plywood board, I had to consider
how to arrange design elements efficiently.
Cardboard Demo
Those are my first demo works made with a cardboard.
I wanted to develop the third piece a bit more--two triangles with four holes
so that their height is adjustable according to a rod; however, I soon realized that
this idea was impossible because of the small hooks that grip a laptop.
An idea popped up when I was assembling the last design,
which consists of a rectangle, rod, and two triangles.
"What about using the alphabets I, M, and A?"
The rod already looks like "I." If carved out accordingly, the rectangle can turn into 'M"
and the triangles into "A." I headed to sketch the A part quickly.
The length of each part, admittedly, was decided somewhat arbitrarily.
After creating a cardboard demo, I realized that it's too steep.
I lowered it a bit and downscaled the whole design to spare more space for the M part.
As seen from the image above, the M part (rectangle) couldn't reach the A parts.
That's why I ended up downscaling it. For the connection, I thought the tenon joints would be the best option because of their simplicity.
Rhino 7 Modeling
I added two pegs on the bottom of each A, so that they are connected to the M.
Carbide Create
In addition to the 2 contour paths (inner and outer), I added 2 pocket paths for pegs and tenons. I placed 20 tabs that would help stabilize the printed results.
CNC & Post-processing
The whole cutting took less than 20 minutes. After removing the tapes,
I used tools such as sandpaper blocks and files to polish the pieces.
This part was particularly tricky because of splinters. When I tried to detach the
final pieces from the board, some tap parts got ripped off and left scars.
