Any consideration to use the framework palmrest as-is (after modifying for water/dustproof)?
You can save on USB/hub by using the onboard keyboard connector.
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I’d just look up the specs required for school use. Would go way beyond mil-spec for real life usage.
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he’s planning on stationing the system out in the desert/launchpad (a.k.a. in-field) and take on rocket blasts (at least indirect ones) as well as being rained on
Honestly a “cool as [_]” build.
Still not as tough as 5th Grade spec. 
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a 5th grade … well, first they won’t get a laptop. a 3 year old tablet at most
And then the tablet be enclosed in one of those gigantic clunker plastic-frame-shock thingys.
And honestly I don’t think that is a terrible thing to say. Yes, tablets suck, but being 5th grades they won’t need much to begin with.
I got my (broken) laptop during 10th grade after I “stole” it from my father, and replaced the charging port (as well as SSD) for my uses.
My real upgrade came at … late 11th grade. With the Dell 9360, which unfortunately died around 1 year ago (14th grade)
Now I am rocking a Pentium 4605U in a hp netbook (with $300 worth of RAM and SSD hardware).
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@Zachariah_Mears - I’m glad you posted a topic on this! I have a similar need for disaster communications (I’m a ham radio operator) as well as drone mission support (I hold an FAA Part 107).
Some ideas you might find useful related to temperature management and dust/weather resistance that I’m pondering for a future Framework project…
During the 2020 Oregon Wildfires, my ham radio club was participating in ARRL Field Day. The temperatures hung at around 110 degrees and some of our electronics were starting to fail–including our Ubiquiti WiFi access point (should have worked fine). You might want to add some sort of provisions to ensure that your laptop stays cool.
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Thermally couple hot parts of the logic board to an external heat sink. Fans sucking air in are problematic (eg, dust). If ambient air is very hot, fans might worsen the problem. You could address this with an external heat sink, perhaps one sitting on a frozen gel pad.
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As for weather resistance, you use a hermetically-sealed case with a heat sink and waterproof USB-C connectors (example from Amphenol).
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Another idea might be to use a waterproof conformal coating. I saw some neat stuff coated with parylene at the 2022 Commercial UAV Expo. (Not clear to me how much this costs.)
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YMMV, but it could be interesting to try drone shock absorbers (those ball shaped things) to suspend your logic board in some enclosure.
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Is there any Update on this project?
Hi All,
Apologies for no news on this project for such a large amount of time. I had another project come up on the team, and was focused on that for a while, however I have some big updates now!
First of all a bit of a spin off from this project: Since framework supported the project with a full laptop we ended up with a spare i5 mainboard. This has been put to excellent use and now runs our data acquisition systems, removing the need to have a full laptop beside the rocket!
As for the actual laptop things have changed a bit since my last update. Since we didn’t have a ton of people spending time on the project, some of the tech I want to incorporate has been put on hold for now, in favor of completing a highly modular and upgradable MVP.
The custom aluminum frame was going to be somewhat expensive and time consuming to build, luckily, Pelican was nice enough to sponsor us with an iM3100 case, which the laptop will be built into. we have designed an aluminum lattice frame which all of the internals will mount to, using 3D printed mounts that can be quickly designed and printed.
We also have most of the key electronics we need, with the rest arriving tomorrow. as such I was able to power the system up for the first time with all 3 displays running!
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A few days late on this update, but the “MK0” of the ruggedized laptop is done!
there are a lot more upgrades to make before it meets all of our requirements, but for now we are quite happy with it, and are looking forward to testing it out in the desert this week at our competition.
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it looks amazing
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Quite incredible, and all right here in K-W.
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This is the kind of shark-jumping no-compromises project that I love to see. Awesome job!
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@Zachariah_Mears This looks amazing! Do you have a full schematic/parts list you can share? Or maybe you already posted it and I couldn’t find it.
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This would be awesome
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Sorry for the very slow response on this. I don’t have a complete parts list right now, and it would take a bit to put together a comprehensive list, but let me know if you have any particular questions. I think a lot of the major components are listed throughout this thread.
In addition we have some new members working on a big re-design and upgrade, so hopefully the parts list will be changing a fair bit, but I’ll try to compile a better BOM as part of the upgrades if there is demand for it.
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Was this your team?
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Hi Fraoch, Yes it was! The team is very excited as it’s a massive accomplishment!
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Congratulations! A successful liquid fueled rocket launch is quite an accomplishment!
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That was FAST. I blinked…and like “where did it go?”.
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Haha yep, it’s 0 to 100kph is 0.2 seconds, which is roughly how long it takes to blink