As you can see from the photo above, not only is my area a messy jumble of cables, it is also quite uncomfortable to use due to the cramped space and unergonomic height of the monitor perched on top of a graphics card box.

Design Goals

My uncomfortable setup necessitated a quality of life improvement, so I used the opportunity to make several improvements in one go.

Raise the height of the monitor for ergonomic viewing and to improve posture

Reduce clutter by storing the laptop on a shelf underneath the monitor and tidying cabling

Improve laptop performance under heavy loads by integrating a cooling fan into the laptop shelf

The Design

Utilising my available resources, I chose a design that could be laser cut from sheet material and assembled without tools using lap joins and an interference fit. The final design had 3 different components and required 6 parts in total. Using readily available sheet material, the design was low cost, simple, and quick to produce.