boris1

Also, you can just buy the fabric shade -- it's Pixel Sunscreen, by company Think Tank. You can find it on Amazon.

Interesting idea. How do you prevent the music stand from tipping from wind? I thought of something like this, but thought that the stands would be too heavy to carry around, if they would large enough to be stable enough. Also, the stands are short -- you can't really work standing, can you?

Guys, if I get the funding, I'll make it better before I put into production (more portable, etc.) I'll do some more R&D and tinkering with it. I'll probably also hire a mechanical engineer to consult me. But it does the job, even as it is. So worst case, you'll get it as it is now, best case you'll get a better variant.

I'll only work on V2 of this after I get some funding through a campaign. Why? I'm a coder by trade. I'm not going to gamble with R&D on the table concept, if I have to bootstrap it on my own. If I get the funding, I'll go full time on this, and I'll surely make it more portable. I have to experiment with 3D printed parts, I think. It can't be done with stuff out of Home Depot.

First, it gets cold to work sitting if it's Spring time (15 degrees Celcius). Is this case, only working standing keeps you warm enough, since the blood is circulating. (In the hot summer, you could work sitting in a shade of a tree.) Second, you can't work sitting on the ground for too long, it's just not ergonomic. I also like my ergonomic Microsoft keyboard, without which I can't code for too long. I like my mouse, etc. So, by sitting on the ground you can do some adhoc work, but you'll go home for serious commitment.

This is not a problem if you cowork with someone. But it's not the case for me, so planning ahead about the bathroom is the most critical deciding factor for where I'm going to work.

I try to find a spot that either has a real toilet close by, or a place with a foresty area where I could pee in the bushes. A bonus is if I can keep line-of-sight on my Tree Table. In any case, I leave the tree table attached. No one is going to bother to steal it, it looks too unusual, weird, intimidating.

I could also ask someone else in the park who looks normal to watch my stuff, but I have never found the situation to be critical enough to make such a request.

It takes me about 10 minutes, and it's complicated the first few times. I got a hang of it now. The trick is to hold the mounting-bar and the belt in one grip by the right hand, while you tighten the belt with the left. I tighten loosely to leave some room to move up and down, so that I position it to my desired height. After that I tighten it more. I attach the table, slightly adjust the mounting bar so that the table is horizontal. Then I use a wrench to tighten to the maximum. After that I extend the side locks, so that the table doesn't wiggle side to side.

People tried this, it's the most well known way. I haven't tried it, but I suspect that it doesn't work well. Why? There's no existing product on the market, despite the fact that it's a well known method. My guess that it's hard to level the table that way. Also, there's the patent on which the Tree Table is based (expired in 2001). Why was the patent made, if an alternate solution was easy?

You can't work on a regular table (like a church table) in a standing position. On a cloudy spring day, it's too cold to sit. You have to work standing, to keep the blood flowing.

Also, a folding church table is heavy to carry around. Part of all that weight comes from the fact that the table has to be of a reasonable size to be tall and stable. The best table like this is the pricy Roll-a-Table (it's not a church table) and I have it. But it's 12 lb to carry around which I didn't enjoy. And, I also had to carry also a chair (Roll-a-Chair), and at the end of it all, I couldn't work standing. So, on top of this a carried around a camping table that I put on top of the Roll-a-Table. Together with a laptop stand, it gave me a standing working position. All that complexity is gone with the Tree Table. I mount it at the height I need to work standing, and it's light to carry.

If I get the funding, I'll invest some part of it to see if I can make it disassemble more for better portability. If I don't come with a simplification, you get the table as in the prototype.

I tried it on about 20 trees, of all shapes I could find here in Vancouver, BC, coding on my laptop for 8 hours a day. No noticeable damage with a naked eye, using the prototype. The bark doesn't get damaged, because once everything is tightened, there's no movement or wiggling, only a compression. Most bark can handle the compression. So even if you bump into the tree, nothing's going to happen.

The manufactured product will probably have some padding on the lugs, it may not be wood lugs, but maybe rubber lugs. Or metal or wood lugs, with rubber padding glued on.

The way I set in in the prototype, is when the bolt of the lug rotates, the lug also rotates. So I have to set it right, and then just use it at that position. For the manufactured product, I'd like to set it, then tighten the belt a little, then allow to screw the lug bolt so that the mounting bar would become vertical. This means that the lug must have a bearing, that would make the rotating bolt (or shaft) rotate freely, without moving anything on the bark, so that the bark doesn't get damaged.

Another unknown language, in which I program, is Pliant www.fullpliant.org