There’s an unspoken tenant of the maker movement that demands: calls for bespoke engineering work from friends should always be answered. Maker projects for friends pay dividends in net-happiness injected into the world.

My ‘ol pal Ben (A.K.A Bensbeendead.) knows this kind of work is a favorite of mine. So when he asked, of course I jumped at the opportunity to design and manufacture some “elbows” that mount his laptop and controller atop RGB stage lighting.

During his performances, Ben uses two RGB lighting tubes that react live to the music being performed on stage. The idea was that these could double as tables of sorts, providing performance-height surfaces for the pieces of gear he interacts with during a show without occupying any more floor space.

A few caliper measurements here, some PETG printing on the Prusa MK2S there and we were ready for a sold out show at Sun Tiki. The show was actually in November of 2023 but I’m only now writing it up.

The print files are available over on printables, here’s a quick render of one of the assemblies:

Some baby photos of the build:

For the record, the controller is the Native Instruments Maschine, and the Macbook is a 15″ MacBook Pro (2019).

There are a few other videos of the night over on the bensbeendead. instagram.

While you’re here you should check out the song/video “Feels Like Dancing”, a favorite track of mine: