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| The iBook H2 |
| Written by John hart | ||||
| Thursday, 01 September 2005 | ||||
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The iBook H2
A long time ago, a former friend told a tall tale about a possibly imaginary friend who had built a PC on top of an RC car so he could drive it around his house. based on the source, I took it as the tall tale it was, but the mental picture never wanted to fade. It was a good story, a great idea. It just seemed excessive.
Anyway, one day at work, I was explaining to a customer why Apple doesnt call their notebooks laptops, but rather portables (I like portables best, honestly) when the RC car thing popped into my head. I looked at my ibook and let my sense of stupidity get the better of me. (as usual) On the way home, I stopped by TOYS 'R' US and bought the worst looking RC car I've ever seen. A scary looking Hummer H@ with bad plastic spinny rims, and horrid stickers. But, there was a sale, so I wasnt a complete idiot. the humor was that at purchase time, the register kid asked me if I wanted to spend an extra $20 for extended investment protection on my purchase. It went something like this. "would you be interested in Extended Care Coverage for your Purchase? For an extra $20 we will replace it at...(I cut him off) "No, thats okay, I'm gonna cut it apart when I get home." "You are?" "Yeah. I'm gonna scrap it and rebuild it so I can mount my iBook on it and drive my laptop around the house." "Are you serious?" "Totally." "Thats so cool!" "yeah." I think maybe I rocked his world with the thought of driving my computer around the house. It was a good thing. Once home, I unpacked the Hummer, and promptly tore it apart. I'm convinced that idiots build these things, because they're held together with a dozen screws. Quite frankly, I had plenty of screwdrivers when I was 12, and this thing would have been toast in my hands. But I digress. I tore it apart, and examined the shell. I marked off the size of my iBook, and headed into the garage. 20 minutes, a dremel, and several hot plastic burns later, I had turned the hummer into a convertible. I checked it against my iBook and decided we were in business.
Next, I pulled out an old ibook lid, measured it to shape, and cut the ends off. I decided to use this as the mounting deck, as it had an Apple logo on it. It seemed fitting. I then glued the whole thing together with a large amount of black silicone caulk.
Once the caulk was dry, I filled in the gaps with Sculpey Modeling putty, and heat cured it till it was hard. Sanding took place, and we were off to paint!
Painting was quick with this piece, since it was an RC car. The car body, and the shells for my iBook were primed and sanded. The car and my iBook were then painted black, and clear coated. Several sets of stickers were created in Photoshop, and got stuck to the car. The shells went back on my iBook.
Finally, several strips of velcro were attached to my ibook and to the car. The ibook was then attached to the car, and booted up.
Needless to say, the cats run when they hear my ibook playing LowRider now!
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