Art Center Summit 2010: Projects & Partnerships in Sustainable Design

Dice Yamaguchi

Product Design 2008

Dice Yamaguchi graduated from Art Center in 2008, where he led the student-run EcoCouncil for three terms. Dice is currently a product/interface designer at Magellan Navigation. He has extensive and varied experience with manufacturing of products, from welding bicycle frames to inventing, prototyping, producing and marketing independently conceived products.

He currently holds a design patent as a Black and Decker employee, and has a bicycle handlebar stem design in prototype stages designed with a bicycle parts company. He also created a bamboo plywood laptop stand now in production, “LaptopSticks.” 

COMMUNICATIONS / ELECTRONICS

LaptopSticks Laptop Stand

Product Description

LaptopSticks elevate a laptop computer to aid its cooling capacity. LaptopSticks were designed to be simple to produce using minimal materials and requiring no tooling. By way of laser-cut parts, they are created from a single piece of bamboo plywood. Besides its laptop cooling benefit, LaptopSticks provide the ergonomic advantage of better posture.

Sustainable Goals & Strategies

The main design goal was to produce a stand for elevating a laptop using the least amount of material and waste. By minimizing material use, LaptopSticks are small enough to fit into the slimmest laptop sleeve. Nearly 300 sets can be made from a single 4’ x 8’ sheet of material. Olive oil is used a non-toxic sealer for the bamboo, and packaging consists of a single slip of paper held in place by o-rings.