College dorms are notoriously tiny; which either forces most students into a life of minimalism, or for [Thomas Hopmans], innovation to overcome the lack of square-footage.
His first step was getting a Murphy bed, which saves tons of space. But he wanted to add a few extra features to his, so instead he decided to make his own! He designed the entire thing in SolidWorks, which might seem like overkill, but he’s an Industrial Design student, and has become quite proficient in the software from his various work internships.
The bed uses pneumatic struts to make lifting and lowering the bed frame easy — the cool part is the mechanism he designed which causes his dual 28″ monitors to pop up from the desk. They’re directly coupled to the bed with a linkage which ensures they’ll never get accidentally crushed by the bed.
He admits he could have just mounted the monitors to the bottom of the bed, but that wouldn’t have been nearly as fun as this. He estimates the total cost was around $350 for whole thing, which isn’t half bad for a bed… and a desk!
For more information on the project check out the Reddit thread. One thing’s for sure though, it’s certainly a better use of pneumatics compared to this pneumatic bed alarm clock…
[Thanks Matt!]
That is ultra sweet.
this is cool
Wow….where’d that girl go???
Well considering the geekeness of this hack I just assumed she was a hologram. But the more important question is, this being a college dorm where is he equally clever hidden stash?
It’s the nerd revenge version of Otter’s Animal House bachelor pad!
Really impressive build, I just think that those screens needed to go a little bit higher, or you’d be looking down the whole time you’re using the computer. Still very impressive and well done/thought.
You are supposed to. Ergonomically it is considered best for the top of the monitors to be an inch or two above eye level.
Okay, from a “lets put this into daily usage” perspective, this must be one of the greatest inventions I’ve seen in quite some time. Very cool indeed.
Except if you forget to secure bed covers they gonna end up between bed-desk and wall..
From practical point of view bunk bed desk is much better and cheaper. Of course much less cool.
Buy a binder clip, screw one side to the bed. Problem Solved.
I feel like the cost of this project would prevent about 99% of college students from completing it. Nice work though.
College students can afford $20,000 tuition per year but not a $350 bed? Even a cheap IKEA bed and desk would cost you close to $300…
Well no, they cant afford $20,000 tuition. Thus massive student loan debt. Most college students either don’t have a bed frame at all (can’t get cheaper than free), a bed frame their parents gave to them (free again), or it is made out of 2×4 lumber for about 20 dollars.
300 dollars for a cool bed vs 20 for 2x4s and 20 for two trash filing cabinates + 360 for beer.
It’s a dorm. It probably comes with a basic bed. Some kids bring their own when they have cool space-saving capabilities (like what he built). There is no reason to resort to 2x4s and filing cabinets until you grow out of the dorm and get that first apartment.
At least that’s how it worked at my college and those of various friends I visited.
Agreed, wish I had that kind of money in college. When you have the most freetime of your life and actually have the time to build cool shit.
wow just wow that is cool as hell for i = 1,inf do print(“wow”) end
I hope he can cover that plywood surface with something fit to write on, and roll the edge on front
Writing? What is this “Writing” you speak of? College students like this guy would do everything on whatever computer powers those 2 nice looking monitors.
Look at the pictures! He has a notebook (the paper kind) sitting between the keyboard and the monitor with space between everything. All he has to do is move the keyboard over and pull the notebook closer if he wants to write.
Just like a computer geek….hot chick on the bed and all he wants to do it flip her off so he can play computer games.
Real human girl? You rock sir!
You people are all sick going on about the girl! He just got there. Clearly that’s his sister seeing him off!
Now… once he has been there a while and started to actually meet some girls he is going to find he has a problem when he has to flip the bed up to get ot his computer to start the mood music. He can still plug his phone into that stereo I see off to the side though. That will work until he decides he wants the computer to auto-dim the lights with the music.
He is going to have to code a phone app to remote-control the computer music/mood lighting show. That’s ok though, just picking up the phone and tapping the screen a few times will be far more smooth than saying ‘just a sec’ and heading off to click away at the computer keyboard anyway.
It’s clear enough that he has some build cred. He may or may not have any coding credentials, but a guess would be that he at least knows a guy (or a gal, if I discriminate, I discriminate equally). Some simple remote control code for his phone, tablet, or both; or dispense with all that by putting at least a small mirror on the opposite wall (the wall facing the back of the chair), and using a regular IR remote to control the computer. The possibilities are nearly limitless, at least for anyone willing to use their brain for something other than an alcohol sponge (at least part of the time… don’t want to spoil all his fun).