Christopher.Kouttron

THE SCRAPTOP

The Build

 

THE FINAL PRODUCT

           

The scraptop was designed for the sole purpose of proving the power left in what we throw out. All of the components of the laptop were all found on the streets of Huntington, New York. The screen of the scraptop was removed from an Audiovox portable DVD player which I found scrounging through the local recycling center. To make the laptop have a more exotic feel and look to it, I decided to make the laptop clear, since I have never seen a clear laptop before. The ¼in. Plexiglas was donated from a local glass supply store since the pieces I needed for the build were small enough that I could use the scraps and leftovers. I decided to use the Plexiglas as the chassis to my computer not only because it looks cool, but one could see the inner workings of the laptop while it is on. The components were a medley of parts from a wide variety of brands and manufacturers. To add to the unique look of the laptop, I made the keyboard clear. To do this, I took apart an old keyboard, removed the keys and interfacing material and I constructed my own keyboard. To separate the keys from moving around, I used balsa wood to make compartments for each of the keys to fall in. Not only does the keyboard look cool, but it is the only clear keyboard in the world. Although the laptop may look strange from a distance, but when one looks closer it is amazing that the laptop really works and performs like one which we buy at stores. The scraptop is not a slow machine, in which it has a state of the art, 1.4GHz Intel Pentium III processor, 512mb of memory, a 40Gb hard drive, a floppy drive, a power supply, a 8mb ATI graphics card and a 56x CD-ROM drive. In the end, the scraptop weighs in at just under eight pounds, even though it has its own internal power supply. However, the laptop is very large in dimensions since I did not have access to any laptop components. This did not stop me because most of the parts in the laptop were cut down in proportions so that the laptop would be as dense as possible. The entirety of the scraptop has been custom made, and topped off with a six inch color monitor built into the palm rest of the laptop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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