Design suggestion: Laptop Tree

[just john]

Want to design a laptop tree?

Here's the backstory: A few years ago, I was faced with the problem of how to store several laptops that were powered-up and open, all with power cables and some with other cables attached.  This would be to allow things like 3d renders to cook overnight, etc.

Of course, I couldn't stack them like so many open books, because they'd hit each others' keyboards and screens and because the heat would build up.

So I thought about this challenge, off and on, over the years, assuming I might be one of the only person with this need.  (REAL computer pros use servers and the like!)

But now I'm in a job where a person with an office down the hall has the job of "imaging" computers to be used by our site's employees.  About half of the computers are laptops, and every spare bit of horizontal space in her office is taken up by laptops running software installs.

That revived my interest in the stacking question.

Requirement:  A piece of furniture to hold many powered-up laptops in their open positions, with enough space between them to allow air flow for cooling and to glance at their screens, and with an eye toward minimizing cord tangling when inserting and removing each laptop.

So here are my thoughts, so far:

Have a base and a vertical pole or board, so it starts as an L-shaped thing.  Perhaps some mass should be placed on the base to prevent tipping.

At intervals on the vertical piece, have arms attached at angles slightly above horizontal, like branches of some trees.   My first notion for the shape of each arm was two triangles, about 40 centimeters by 10 centimeters, joined in a V-shape along the long (non-hypotenuse) side.  So stuff you placed in them would not slide out accidentally.

But that doesn't take into account the cabling.  So one variation on the notion I've had is turning the above-mentioned triangles into tapering comb-like things, though the extreme end of that concept would result eventually in less support of the laptops, broken comb teeth and making insertion and removal of the running laptops trickier.  Maybe a compromise between the notions could be a mostly-solid shape, with notches that would guide the laptop insertion.   (Fancy versions might take the "tree" motif into consideration.)

I like the idea of keeping it symmetric, so you could have each laptop face either direction, and so the dangling cords could alternate.

And for the full "tree" effect, one could stand two of these back-to-back or three radiating out from a center.

Anybody out there facing the same challenge?

[just john]

(Forgot to add:  The image of this I have in my head could also be used as a multiple laptop/tablet/whatever charging station, if you added the USB cabling to it.  Actually, that might wind up being its most popular use, in classrooms or even homeless shelters. (I was amazed when I became homeless*, that when a shelter opened its doors each day, half the residents (including me) raced toward any open power outlets, to charge their phones. THEN we went for the coffee.)


* I'm housed now, thank you.