Control Alt Design – Product Development Firm in Chicago

NTS – flexible laptop computers for primary school students

: laptop for “temporary” owners

: auto-badging laptop for temporal owners

: soft grip and festive wee laptop for learners

: wee laptopette for beginners

: Bell rings, class dismissed…REBADGE!

: swivelling camera detail of laptop

: All closed-up, the camera contemplates its navel

: another variation of form for the kidputer

: Yup, my granny is a babe!

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.