NTS – flexible laptop computers for primary school students

Control Alt Design developed an educational laptop and charging cart for NTS, a manufacturer of an educational computing platform. 

The goal was to produce inexpensive, durable and flexible laptop computers for primary school students in third world countries which were maintained by the school (charged in a rollabout classroom rack) but each serving multiple sets of students, on a period-by-period “ownership” basis. 

One of the main challenges was to instill a pride-of-ownership in the recipient, a problem when the timeline of ownership extended only to the next bell! 

We proposed relegendable LCD name badges on the laptops, tied in via 802.11 to the teacher’s computer.  Each time a new period began–the laptops would re-legend with the new student’s name.