The Last Lapdesk? The J.

If you have been one of the 7 faithful followers of this journey, you would know that I have been looking for the ultimate portable desk.  In fact, the name of this blog came from the idea of portable learning anywhere.   Having the risers in my class where students work in different places all over the room and in different body positions, regular desks were not going to suffice.  So I started trying different kinds of portable desks.  

First, were the $2 plastic document holders.  They were light, gave a nice flat surface for writing and had a little storage, but they did not last more than a year.

Next, I tried dollar store clipboards.  They were okay, but because of the lack of storage, students lost a lot of pencils.  They were good for hanging up on the wall out of the way when not in use.

So I started making my own desks inspired by a wine box I saw.  They were gorgeous and had some storage.  Putting a clip on the long sliding lid made for a good clipboard and built in stand up easel. Unfortunately, these boxes were bulky, heavy, and used all of my woodworking skills, so they took a long time to build.  

So back to the clipboards for a while.

Then I came across some shower board and played with an easel idea.

But I wanted to have some storage, and came up with this idea based on a boutique shopping bag. Between the great surface that could be used as a whiteboard and the shopping bag appeal in the design, this was a very popular lapdesk.  After cutting the wood, it was a snap to build by using duct tape which gave a little pencil storage at the bottom.  But that was the downside: the tape could not hold up to the rigors of being a lapdesk.  Plus, the shower board is no longer available.

I started thinking about something sturdy and that had some storage.  I was looking at what students had in their pencil boxes that they needed all of the time.  I played with the idea of a zippered pouch velcroed to a clipboard, but my sewing skills are worse than my woodworking skills.  I kept going back to the students' ubiquitous pencil boxes to figure out how I could replace them.  That is when I had my eureka moment: Instead of replacing the pencil boxes, why not incorporate them into my design?

Enter my latest lapdesk incarnation:

The J.

(Yeah, I know.  Ooh.)

Made from my labour-friendly factory (where I normally park my car), skilled craftsman (with grade 8 woodworking skills) can whip one of these babies up in minutes (once all the parts are cut and prepared) for less than $1 CAD per unit.

 

The wood is cut from one large sheet of 3/8 plywood.  It is light and sturdy.

The lapdesk stands up for compact storage, but can also be hung from the handle.  

The solid wood bottom gives bottom ballast so the surface does not tip easily.  

  

The clip is allows the lapdesk to be used like an easel.  The lip, (the J) allows the pencil box to be nestled under the writing surface when in use or when stored.  

When the lapdesk is flipped over, the "hook" part gives a raised part 

so the user has a good writing angle.  

The screwed-in solid wood bottom is strong enough to hold the angle in place 

when written on (unlike the duct-taped model).

The writing surface is slightly larger than a letter-sized piece of paper, 

but unlike other incarnations, the surface is not so big that grade 2 arms can't reach the top.  

The clip can be moved to the side to keep the paper in place. 

Below is a chart that outlines the qualities that I wanted in my lapdesk (on left) with the different incarnations of lapdesks (top).  

	traditional desk	plastic transparent document holder	clipboard	box with sliding lid	shopping bag style	The J
portable	no, unless you are really strong	very	yes	somewhat	yes	yes
robust	very	fragile	somewhat	somewhat	NOT	hopefully
eco-friendly	no, but long lasting	not	somewhat	yes	somewhat	yes
economical (cheap!)	no	somewhat	yes	somewhat	yes	yes
buildable with grade 8 woodworking skills	nope	nope.  I don’t extrude plastic.	easier to buy	sort of, but time consuming	yes	very easy
storage	lots	yes	none	yes	yes	yes
good-looking	can be	somewhat	boring	yes	very	yes

While The J does not win in all categories, it does well enough in all the categories that are important to me.