Soft-Closing Laptop

grabcad

Sometimes, in a feat of rage or clumsiness, people slam their laptops closed, and it can do a lot of damage. Some laptops are very heavy and their hinges become loose, causing them to fall shut. I fell victim to this when I slammed my laptop closed in frustration, resulting in it breaking and losing its ability to charge. After getting a new laptop, I realized that I cannot break this one in a similar manner, which is why I came up with this solution: the soft-closing laptop case. My solution involves two attachments that can be used for laptops with a thickness of about one-quarter of an inch. These attachments keep hold onto the laptop through adhesion. These attachments are very similar to the retractable dowels used with soft-closing cabinets: attached to the keyboard of the laptop, on each end, there are two blocks with retractable dowels about an eighth of an inch tall, utilizing springs with a relatively high elasticity. Meanwhile, on the screen, there are two more similarly shaped attachments with two rubber “stoppers” that are shaped to absorb the force from the dowels when the laptop is closed. The weight of the laptop screen should eventually provide enough gradual force to cause the dowels to retract, resulting in the computer taking no damage.