This seems to list some components multiple times in a versioned way, did I get it right that this is rather a whole list of components you've bought while working on this project rather than the final list of the components needed to assemble the notebook you've built?
Truly appreciate it. I spent many weeks afterwards documenting the steps as thoroughly as I could. My email's on the site if anyone needs to reach out, as well. :)
Very nice. Wish there were faster SOMs than the 3588 but maybe in a year or two.
Looks like an MIT admissions portfolio project. Don’t know if it fits the uniqueness category for it but I guess the quality of the end product makes it good enough.
Admittedly this isn’t fully open source like the Novena or the Reform but I doubt adcomms care. I just wish I was rich enough and skilled enough to be able to spend $4.5k on a neat project like this.
Thanks for your suggestions and criticism! Much appreciated. Which aspect of it (aside from the SoM, which I admittedly do not have the R&D to make in this timescale) isn't open-source? I'd love to hear your thoughts. The Novena and Reform are amazing pieces of engineering, but I believe they sacrifice the portability and looks for repairability which some people certainly prefer. I wanted to aim for something that a non-technical consumer might look and say "hmm, nice laptop!" and not think it came out of the matrix or built it myself.
Maybe, depending on reception! I geared it so it could be manufactured at a semi-small scale. Unfortunately, I don't have the capacity to make them myself :(. Thank you for the interest!
Not to take anything away from this amazing achievement, but if you want a similar open-source laptop, also based on an RK3588, that will actually be manufactured and sold, check out the MNT Reform Next: https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/mnt-reform-next
We discussed wave functions, probability, fermions/bosons, did calculations for particle in a box, the Schrödinger model, and went just up to deriving the hydrogen atom. Nothing super fancy, but it was one heck of an experience!
As I've pointed out before, his concession at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35350 was both witty and graceful. It's great that he's still active here! and anyway he's done a ton of things that are a lot more important than that bit.
It's really interesting, in the UK I don't think we did (but I later studied Physics at university) - but we did have Further Maths which covered more advanced mathematics.
Also your project is incredible btw, maybe look into robotics too.
I went to a peer school that had at least a couple of math teachers with PhDs—my friends at the time who took their classes were, if I recall, nationally competitive in math olympiads.
The community college option is available to anyone who’s willing to spend a couple evenings a week taking classes, so I don’t think it’s really that out of reach. Most countries don’t offer their high school students any opportunity to study material that advanced.
Your first 3 options are mostly “be born to the right parents”. So I couldn’t tell if your remark of “it’s more possible than you’d think!” Was serious or not.
Hell I went to a really selective school. But even then, within that the top students, whom I was not one, got to do some extra stuff that would have greatly interested me and I would have been able to do. But my grades in humanities weren’t good enough to be one of the best.
All I did was provide him the space and time to work on the project ... his parents funded the entire project, but will get reimbursement soon. It's the great minds, and the desire to have meaningful projects that make Exeter such an awesome place. Byran is one of a kind!!!!
Some public schools in very wealthy counties will teach some basic quantum mechanics in honors/AP classes, too. All you have to do is acquire parents that can afford the shittiest neighborhood in those districts!
They did in mine in the Netherlands. Also electronics and programming (this was a long time ago so it was all pretty new); it was a special class to prep for university more than the regular curriculum does, but it was a public school and not even a very good one; just a few really good and switched on teachers (physics, math and chem).
In the high school in Poland I attended, I lucked into being in a class with a university TA assigned as physics teacher, and he did manage to sneak in QM - more-less the same stuff as 'Hello9999901 listed in their reply.
(He also taught us differentiation in the first semester, and basic integrals in the second, because as he said, you cannot learn physics properly without those tools. This annoyed the heck out of our math teacher; she ended up deciding that, if we're learning this anyway, we might as well learn it properly - and gave us a much heavier intro to calculus in the last months of the last year.)
The USA has some great schools. OP goes to Phillips Exeter Academy, which is an exclusive private school that ranks among the best high schools in the country.
Thanks! I've been considering it (or enough detailed instructions to build one) since starting the project. I need to get a working model first though ;)
There are some obvious next steps for improving the polish on this, would you say you were more resource constrained, time constrained, or skill constrained?
For instance, did you put any thought into making flex PCBs to make the cable routing easier?
I also think the concept of a laptop with a removable wireless keyboard is brilliant, and I think your implementation is a lot cleaner than e.g. the Surface or the iPad's case-keyboards. If I had a laptop that did that, it would be my go-to travel machine. One less thing to cart around.
Hey! Thank you for the question. For sure, it's not a polished product and I don't mean for it to be. It works surprisingly well. (I've used it as my daily driver for school)
With college apps and school work, the time was tight. I'd say that was the most limiting. Of course, resource and skill played its role.
I did consider flex PCBs, but I didn't have the time to follow through with all the ambitions (i also wanted an FOC input sigh).
I'm honored that you think my keyboard implementation is nice! I put a lot of thought into it — truly. Oh btw the keyboard works just as well as a solo device. I've used the keyboard more than the computer in some ways. Thanks!
If you keep this idea alive (and I hope you do!), you might consider shrinking the keyboard battery and designing its docking configuration so that it automatically charges from the main battery when stored in the laptop. A 3 month keyboard battery capacity seems sort of excessive when its mechanically part of a machine that charges daily.
I think one of the limitations to the keyboard concept you have is that it complicates using the laptop base as a stand for the screen in a tablet configuration. Outside of tablets with fully detachable keyboards (e.g. the Surface or the iPad pro), I don't think anybody has a good design for that. Was a touchscreen ever a consideration for stretch goals or design for expansion?
Hmmm. That's also an interesting solution to the same problem. Although honestly, the scenario where I want to have a removable keyboard, I'm likely using an external display (probably a hotel TV), and a small wireless mouse is a lot easier to transport than a keyboard (and more ergonomic than a keyboard small enough for transport) so the extra screen and trackpad are sort of lost on me.
Also loved the detachable keyboard (which has me fantasize about a detachable screen as well + external hdmi/displayport, as I hate the working positions I end up in with a laptop, so it'd be nice to be able to get a more comfortable setup in a hotel room etc. that still packages up to a laptop.
Thank you so much! If you'd like to discuss further, please let me know! My email is in the website. I have a Framework 16 and have tons of ideas. Never got around to it though. (I also burned a few screens, and had 3 as backup haha).
I'm curious how the USB-C connectors are made to the outside of the enclosure.
What I've found is that it's a bad idea to use USB extension cables; these can introduce bit errors if e.g. you copy large amounts of data (order of terabytes). It's much better to insert a USB drive directly into a carrier board, but this is not always physically possible.
It's almost standard to have the USB-C have extra wiggle-room (around 1mm or so). Then, the housing is 1mm past the USB-C connector. That's how the casings are made so that when you stick the connector in, it's flush or nearly so.
I agree with USB extension cables concerns too! The error would increase depending on the quality (impedance, power, etc.)
> Then, the housing is 1mm past the USB-C connector.
Yes, this is often the case but sometimes the USB-C connectors are on the same side of the board where you also need to plug in some cables that you need internally (maybe even other USB devices). Thus the option of letting an USB-C port stick out on one side of the enclosure is not always available.
> I agree with USB extension cables concerns too! The error would increase depending on the quality (impedance, power, etc.)
Yes, and the user of your device (who doesn't see the internal cable) will assume that they can plug in their own cable, so you'll have two cables.
Hanging around 5 grand. Unfortunately the R&D process was rough! The R&D BOM is linked below, feel free to take a look. If you were to build it, I'd estimate it costing around 1500 dollars (or less).
Yeah. My "budget" for similar scale project (sw, fw, hw, enclosure co-design) in high school 24 years ago was about $200. I'd have loved to have these kinds of resources/lab tools access. I even made [private, so that tool makers did not patch the holes/obfuscate] cracks for Eagle, HI-TECH C compilers and Solid Edge, to have some nice SW tools to work with, without arbitrary limits.
But I sure had plenty of time, and it was fun to always be learning something new. Simpler times when it was out of reach to have anything done for me, like prototype PCBs and let alone assembly. :)
These days are absolutely crazy in comaprison, with all the ready-made SBCs or SBC modules, and free software, and like $4 PCB prototyping services and CNC machining, 3D printing, $15 powerful FPGAs, $7 fully Linux capable 1GHz Cortex-A7 tiny computer modules for bread-boards, and cheap components from China... Still remember going to a shop buying single unit amounts of SMD resistors and capacitors over the counter. Now I can get 4000 unit SMD sample book for a few $ and never think about it again. Even my 2000 self would be able to afford it without much trouble. It's kind of a force multiplier easily available even for high-schoolers.
Looks good. Could be a small step to my vision for a dock dependent palm sized pc with high powered cpu connected by a single USB C with no other ports except for micro sd. And backed up by a mini battery for power stability on low watt chargers.
Holy. That's an achievement very few people can claim. Wonder if HN has a "hall of fame", a worthy entry.
You did the smart thing there with the SoM (for the uninitiated: power sequencing to individual parts of an SoC and its external components is an epic hassle to get right and that's assuming you actually have proper documentation - without it it's an utter pain), but how in hell did you get the high frequency stuff working out on what was likely your first or second try? This is IMHO where your work really shines.
USB-C, DisplayPort (at 4K to boot) and PCIe at modern speeds are all but black magic to most, this isn't digital any more, this is good old analog circuitry and physics at work that most people don't even learn in university any more.
Thank you so much — yes, that was the hardest part of this entire project! I spent 2 months getting eDP working (second PCB thankfully).
I had the honor of learning high speed signaling from the best. I met some super cool people from Silicon Valley and research universities (from past work, like the MUREX Ethernet Switch). The ZMK Firmware community too!
337 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 281 ms ] threadPeople like Byran live amongst us
Making their own laptops but from SCRATCH
Imagine how good this man’s pasta carbonara tastes
how much was it to get the case milled?
Looks like an MIT admissions portfolio project. Don’t know if it fits the uniqueness category for it but I guess the quality of the end product makes it good enough.
Admittedly this isn’t fully open source like the Novena or the Reform but I doubt adcomms care. I just wish I was rich enough and skilled enough to be able to spend $4.5k on a neat project like this.
In terms of college, still waiting :)
Love the parts research you did.
Bryan is in his last year of high school.
</end>
Keep building!
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079
Also your project is incredible btw, maybe look into robotics too.
Perhaps you didn't go to a high school quite like this one: https://exeter.edu/admissions/financial-aid/tuition-costs/
> Nothing super fancy
Yeah, that's college level stuff, it's pretty fancy for high school, you go to a nice place :)
- Go to a fancy private school like Phillips Exeter
- Really luck out and get into a great public STEM magnet school
- Homeschool and take private classes / have very smart parents
- Concurrently enroll at a community college (a really great option that I think every country should have)
Hell I went to a really selective school. But even then, within that the top students, whom I was not one, got to do some extra stuff that would have greatly interested me and I would have been able to do. But my grades in humanities weren’t good enough to be one of the best.
(He also taught us differentiation in the first semester, and basic integrals in the second, because as he said, you cannot learn physics properly without those tools. This annoyed the heck out of our math teacher; she ended up deciding that, if we're learning this anyway, we might as well learn it properly - and gave us a much heavier intro to calculus in the last months of the last year.)
I hope this turns into something I can buy (maybe a diy kit), in the future!
There are some obvious next steps for improving the polish on this, would you say you were more resource constrained, time constrained, or skill constrained?
For instance, did you put any thought into making flex PCBs to make the cable routing easier?
I also think the concept of a laptop with a removable wireless keyboard is brilliant, and I think your implementation is a lot cleaner than e.g. the Surface or the iPad's case-keyboards. If I had a laptop that did that, it would be my go-to travel machine. One less thing to cart around.
I'm honored that you think my keyboard implementation is nice! I put a lot of thought into it — truly. Oh btw the keyboard works just as well as a solo device. I've used the keyboard more than the computer in some ways. Thanks!
I think one of the limitations to the keyboard concept you have is that it complicates using the laptop base as a stand for the screen in a tablet configuration. Outside of tablets with fully detachable keyboards (e.g. the Surface or the iPad pro), I don't think anybody has a good design for that. Was a touchscreen ever a consideration for stretch goals or design for expansion?
It also has two screens and its own stand, I use it as my travel machine.
Very impressed by what you have done here. Kudos to you on achieving designing and building a whole laptop!
What I've found is that it's a bad idea to use USB extension cables; these can introduce bit errors if e.g. you copy large amounts of data (order of terabytes). It's much better to insert a USB drive directly into a carrier board, but this is not always physically possible.
I agree with USB extension cables concerns too! The error would increase depending on the quality (impedance, power, etc.)
Yes, this is often the case but sometimes the USB-C connectors are on the same side of the board where you also need to plug in some cables that you need internally (maybe even other USB devices). Thus the option of letting an USB-C port stick out on one side of the enclosure is not always available.
> I agree with USB extension cables concerns too! The error would increase depending on the quality (impedance, power, etc.)
Yes, and the user of your device (who doesn't see the internal cable) will assume that they can plug in their own cable, so you'll have two cables.
But I sure had plenty of time, and it was fun to always be learning something new. Simpler times when it was out of reach to have anything done for me, like prototype PCBs and let alone assembly. :)
These days are absolutely crazy in comaprison, with all the ready-made SBCs or SBC modules, and free software, and like $4 PCB prototyping services and CNC machining, 3D printing, $15 powerful FPGAs, $7 fully Linux capable 1GHz Cortex-A7 tiny computer modules for bread-boards, and cheap components from China... Still remember going to a shop buying single unit amounts of SMD resistors and capacitors over the counter. Now I can get 4000 unit SMD sample book for a few $ and never think about it again. Even my 2000 self would be able to afford it without much trouble. It's kind of a force multiplier easily available even for high-schoolers.
[1]: https://www.khadas.com/product-page/mind
You did the smart thing there with the SoM (for the uninitiated: power sequencing to individual parts of an SoC and its external components is an epic hassle to get right and that's assuming you actually have proper documentation - without it it's an utter pain), but how in hell did you get the high frequency stuff working out on what was likely your first or second try? This is IMHO where your work really shines.
USB-C, DisplayPort (at 4K to boot) and PCIe at modern speeds are all but black magic to most, this isn't digital any more, this is good old analog circuitry and physics at work that most people don't even learn in university any more.
I had the honor of learning high speed signaling from the best. I met some super cool people from Silicon Valley and research universities (from past work, like the MUREX Ethernet Switch). The ZMK Firmware community too!
Just looked it up... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40694254 for those who want a direct link.
Jesus. Wish I had had even a fraction your talent at that age. Most impressive.