Reconfigurable and Ergonomic Smart Desk – An EPS@ISEP 2021 Project

The European Project Semester (EPS) offered by the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP) provides engineering, business and product design undergraduates with a project-based learning experience in a multicultural and multidisciplinary teamwork environment. This paper reports the research and development of a reconfigurable and ergonomic three-level desk, for people who live in small spaces, by a multicultural and multidisciplinary team of five students. The main objective of the project was to integrate ethics- and sustainability-driven practices in the design, simulation and test an ergonomic, transformable desk. The FREE desk proposal aims to create a comfortable and dynamic working environment for people while providing a transformable space for different daily activities. This goal was pursued by designing a reconfigurable product, a smart desk that offers the user three levels of adjustability: bench level, sitting desk level, and standing desk level. The desk includes a folding light-sensor lamp into the table top and an integrated battery, in order to create a proper working space. The selected materials have a low environmental impact. The solution comes with different options regarding the table top lifting mechanism. This paper describes the state-of-the-art research, the ethics, sustainability, and marketing analyses, the design and simulation of the FREE desk as well as the obtained results.