Bachelor Degree Project : Suitcase for Laptop Computer with integrated cooling system and workstation functionality

This report summarizes a Bachelor Degree Project in Product Design Engineering, carried out during the spring semester in 2007 by one student on the Product Design Engineering programme at University of Skövde. The project was performed as an assignment for Comfort Cooling AB, a company in Skövde that manufactures cooling clothes and products for medical use. The purpose of the project is to design a suitcase for laptops that is used also as a workstation. It has a cooler system, provided by Comfort Cooling that works with no external energy. It has a base made of foam sheet, to adapt it to the legs of the user. And it has as well all the normal features characteristically of a suitcase for laptops, such as pockets, handles and security features. The first step in the project was to perform market research in order to gather customer needs. It was found that the primary features of a laptop suitcase are that it is waterproof, that it is possible to carry the suitcase on ones back, that there are trays on both sides of the suitcase, and that the suitcase will be available in a range of patterns and colours. After that, the design of the possible solutions for each requirement started to be developed. Once all the requirements of the project were satisfied with different solutions, each one of them were evaluated in order to identify the solutions that in the best way met the stated product requirements. Finally a mock-up was produced for communicating the final design proposal and for enabling basic user trials to be carried out, as well as the final result, i.e. the design and the mock-up of the laptop suitcase. The report portrays the product design process and methods utilized in the project, as well as the final result (the mock up) of the laptop computer bag with integrated cooling effect and workstation