Final Design

Above is my final design, the overall result has turned out to be a very organic and sustainable by combining the organic shape of the laptop with its soft curves and the sustainability of the material which i have used.

Here you can see its features when the laptop is open, it has all the main funtions and features that exsiting laptops have such as an LCD screen, motion eye web cam and keyboard. The trackpad has the texture as the body of the laptop, but abit smoother as this will constantly be in contact with the consumer, with it being smoother will prevent any discomfort or injury. With the trackpad being the same material as the body of the laptop it is slightly comoflauged giing the laptop a nice little feature.

This is the rear view of the laptop when closed, as you can see the casing of the laptop is in one piece and gives the impression that there is no connection between the screen and the base of the laptop, again adding to the organic style of its design.

The key feature of this design is the material which i have chosen to manufacture the laptop out of as it is a very sustainable material, it has a really nice texture to it and also very good properties making it hard waring and protective.

Developement

side of laptop

Top view of laptop

Side profile

Perspective when closed

Perspective when open

Developement (material+laptop)

Here i have taken the idea of adding the new and sustainable material to a laptop. i have simply taken the common shape of a laptop and added the material to it, the material would very effective for a laptop as it would add great strengh and protection to the product as the material is already used as a packaging material and is slowly taking over the existing polstyrene.

In the initial design the keys were white but after playing around with colors i decided that black would look alot more effective.

This close up shows how the logo can still be shown through/embossed into the material to gie the laptop its recognition.

Here are a few close ups of how the material would look on the inside of the laptop, i like the way it complements and works well with the screen and buttons which would be the exsisting materials like plastic and glass.

Material

ECOCRADLE

After doing reseach and initail ideas into adding and adjusting the grippable area on a laptop, i have come to the conclusion of changing the whole body material of a laptop into an unusual material which is not expected to be used in the manufacture of a laptop. This material being eco-cradle which ia currently used as a packaging material and is taking over polystyrene as the new form of packaging.

 

How It Works

How It’s
Made Grown

We actually grow EcoCradle using mycelium, a fungal network of threadlike cells. This mycelium grows around agricultural by-products like buckwheat husks, oat hulls, or cotton burrs to any shape we make. In 5 – 7 days, in the dark, with no watering, and no petrochemical inputs, the mycelium envelops the by-products, binding them into a strong and beautiful packaging part. Inside every cubic inch of EcoCradle, there’s a matrix of 8 miles of tiny mycelial fibers! At the end of the process, we treat EcoCradle with heat to stop the growth so there will never be any spores.

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If we combine these two things, i beleive it would create not only an effective and a very nice product but it will be environmentally friendly and also cheap to manufacture the laptop, i would have to look into the density of the material and see whether i could make it more sturdy/strong and durable.

Biomimicry

The design of the rubber grips on the surface of the laptop was taken from the images which i looked at to do with nature and biomimicry, here are some of those images.

Grip on laptop

Here i have played around with the shape and placement of the grip on the laptop.

The design above is the idea if the whole laptop was in a different materials such as rubber which would make it much more gripable and comfortable to hold, even the keys and buttons would be made from rubber.

This design is based around the honeycomb pattern, refering back to the nature aspect of things.

The honeycomb shape will be made from rubber grip stripes with the honeycomb shapes in the centre strip being fully grippable material

With the honeycomb pattern being made from rubber gives it much more grip and comfort for the user to carry their laptop.

The design to the right is similar to the honeycomb design above, but this design the grips take on the form similar to the pad of a lizard/geko, scaled pattern again taken from the image that represent nature and biomimcry.

 As you can see here the pattern is all over the face of the laptop but the area at the bottom is where i have noticed is the main area of contact whilst carrying the laptop, so therefore here will have the grippable material.

This image here shows how the laptop would be carried and also shows how my design of having the grippable material at the bottom would be the most effective area to have this.

Grip

Whilst looking into carring a laptop i discovered that maybe they should be more gripable whilst carrying, giving the user more comfort whilst carrying thier laptop. here i have looked into grips and materials which are grippy and will add more stabillity to carrying a laptop.

The most common and used grip is rubber, but there are a few other materials like silicone and chrome which are also good grippable materials. chrome being gripable in the palm of the hand with heat making it grip, for example this material is used on the ipod touch, which works very well and is very effective, there is a little research on this product and how it grips below.

I also did abit more research into how people carry and hold there laptop, to figure out where extra grip would need to be positioned on the laptop.

In the image above i have identified where the grip would need to be mostly, that being down the middle and wider on the ends.

Transport, carrying case, bags

Here i have looked into how laptops are held whilst being transported round, they are carried under the arm, across the chest or in a bag which the strap goes over the shoulder. I was looking into wheter i could design the laptop to be easier to carry/hold by simply changing the shape or material of the laptop.

In the image above there is a nice design of a back pack which your laptop slides into, it is well padded and easy to carry, very handy for outdoor activites such as climbing.

 To the left is a sketch of how maybe i could change the form of the laptop to rest around the waist/body whilst carring it.

To the right is a sketch of how i could incorperate a bag into a laptop, withe the bag actually connected to the laptopwhich is easy to carry,and is simply unzip when needed to use the laptop, this would be waterproof and very tough, making it perfect for outdoor activities.