It has taken a few months to get past the Research Stage, but I am finally at a point where I think I have enough information to get started building. 

The first part of this stage was focused on finding the right housing for the project. This project was meant to be viable off-grid, in the great outdoors, and other reasonable scenarios that are not ideal for a computer to be in. With that in mind, a crucial aspect of the housing would be that it would combat, or at least mitigate, the most common ways that electronic equipment might fail in these conditions. Ideally, this means that the housing would be weatherproof, impact-resistant, and water resistant among other things. The housing would also need to be conveniently portable so that it isn't a pain to move. 

One of the first products that came to mind was the Pelican Case. These cases seem to fit most, if not everything, that the housing was required to be. I began looking at the Pelican website to see if they produced a suitable case. I found one, the Pelican Ruck 60 Case, that I thought might be suitable for the needs of the cyberdeck. The only problem that I ran into was that I didn't know where I might be able to actually hold this case before I bought it. I kept looking around, but I eventually bought the Ruck 60.

Once the Ruck 60 came in, some problems in laying out the components became apparent after being able to actually get my hands on it. The first, and most troublesome, is that the insides of the case are tapered. Because the ruggedness of the case was one of its most desired traits, drilling through the outside will only be done if there are no other options. To get past this obstacle, I decided to try a tray or caddy system that is friction-fit in the bottom half of the case. This caddy system also allows for easier upgrade and repair as it can simply be pulled out without tools or solvent. However, there is a challenge in this solution. After some quick observations on the case, a friction-fit system is going to be more difficult to design because of the weird geometry and also because the case is tapered on the inside.

Currently, my focus is on the caddy system. I am hoping to make it work as best as I can, but I am not sure whether it will or not. If the caddy system doesn't work out, the next step would be to figure out whether buying a new case or modifying the Ruck 60 would be the best solution. Little to no software will be developed for the cyberdeck until I can get the physical aspect of the project completed. More updates will continue to come in as I can get the work done.