After receiving feedback from our proposal, we met to discuss and solidify the details of the stand’s mechanics. We are currently thinking about using a 3D printed platform jack as the base of our stand that can smoothly raise a laptop by turning a knob. We found an open source design of a platform jack and sent that to be printed at a smaller scale so that we can see how the mechanism would work with our weight and size requirements.
We have decided to continue our design process with a smaller version of the stand since it would take up a large portion of our budget to fully 3D print the design of the stand with the dimensions we have in mind for the final product. So, we will use this smaller model to experiment with the weight, decide how much torque is needed to turn the dial and raise the stand, and how we can tweak the design to be more portable and compact before we finally print the full sized stand.
Additionally, we would like to see how the linear actuator can be used in combination with the platform jack to tilt the screen of a laptop. We will then discern how we can incorporate this mechanism into our final design, and in what ways we will need to scale the dimensions to better fit our requirements.