Looking for a Kid-proof computer desk.

AJ_Dual

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As some of you may know, we have four girls in diapers, two sets of twins. 9 month old identical girls, and 20 month old fraternal girls.

With our tax refund we've seriously upgraded our PC, and now have freed up our old PIII for our toddlers to use.

My wife found a toddler keyboard with big chunky buttons and some software that's nice, however the CPU and all the cabling is exposed. So of course, they're tearing it apart.

So I need to find a toddler PC desk that's not too expensive, allow access to the kiddy buttons, but keep everything else locked down so that bananas don't wind up in the CD rom and all the vent holes.

Little Tykes makes one, but it comes with the PC and they want $1200 + for it! Not an option...
 
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nighthawk

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AJ_Dual said:
As some of you may know, we have four girls in diapers, two sets of twins. 9 month old identical girls, and 20 month old fraternal girls.

With our tax refund we've seriously upgraded our PC, and now have freed up our old PIII for our toddlers to use.

My wife found a toddler keyboard with big chunky buttons and some software that's nice, however the CPU and all the cabling is exposed. So of course, they're tearing it apart.

So I need to find a toddler PC desk that's not too expensive, allow access to the kiddy buttons, but keep everything else locked down so that bananas don't wind up in the CD rom and all the vent holes.

Little Tykes makes one, but it comes with the PC and they want $1200 + for it! Not an option...

Try this site.
 

AJ_Dual

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Thanks for the suggestion, however, we're looking for an actual toddler-sized workstation, a traditional PC desk with a closeable cabinet for the CPU isn't enough.

I've got sufficient woodworking skills and tools that I could make something, unfortunately, between work and the kids, there's no time to build it, and power tools after their bedtime isn't real smart... :)

We need something that would lock down the screen, hide the CPU leave only the kiddy keyboard exposed. Some way to get to the mouse and the "adult" keyboard would be nice, but not a must.

What we need is something like this Little Tykes computer desk, but without the PC.

I've been Googling, and I keep coming up with the same desks over and over on different sites by different names, they look great except they do nothing to address keeping the CPU and the cables secure.
 

bfg9000

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Wallmount the monitor with a standard VESA mount (or TV wallmount for a CRT), and use a little round shelf (no sharp corners) for keyboard and mouse. This means poking a hole into the next room to hide the CPU so hopefully there's a closet there!

I'd glue the keyboard (membrane models are commonly sold as "indestructible" or "beer-resistant") and a trackball to the shelf/desk to avoid things getting pulled or lost.
 

AJ_Dual

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We thought about that. Unfortunately there are no good spaces to run a cable through the wall, or closets nearby. The den is on the other side of the wall.

Actually, we have no closets on the first floor. Several remodels by previous owners has done away with them! Because we've had four kids in the past two years, we just emptied out our living room and dining room and put down rubber mats to make it our play area. The dining room has built-ins, but they're triangular corner pieces, and not big enough, or deep enough to hold or conceal any PC parts.

This would be easier if we had a super-mini ATX case, then we could just stuff it in any convenient spot, however, the point was to use our existing old PC and not spend any more money...

I think what I'm going to do is stick the PC in our TV hutch, and use a SVGA-to-NTSC scan-converter I have laying around. And that way they can just sit on the floor with the USB kiddy keyboard and play the game on the 32" TV in our den.

I'll just need a S-VHS input switcher from Rat-Shack since the DVD and the cable box are already using up all the inputs.

 

zespectre

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Well, you aren't going to like the price but it sounds like you need something like this
http://www.networktechinc.com/usbkvm.html

Computer safely locked in another room or closet (watch the heat build up if it's in a closet) and the Keyboard, video, mouse off in another room.

Of course if it were me I'd find some cheap used Pentium II at the goodwill or someplace and let that be the kids computer. There is NO WAY kids touch my machine (heck I don't let my wife touch my machine).
 

AJ_Dual

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The PC they have now was our main one up until we upgraded just last month with our tax-refund. We now have a nice P4 with a 19" LCD (w00t!) that we're going to burn home movies to DVD on for the family. The old PC is a Dell PIII that belonged to my employer. I had to take it home when a support contract ended, the client didn't want to be responsible for my employer's assets. I called my corp. HQ repeatedly to send me a return box. They never did...

My employer was sold/went out of business shortly afterward. LOL. I call that old PIII my "severance PC".

But that Ethernet KVM is definitely a nifty piece of gear. It would be great for a kitchen PC or whatnot. And no, you're right, I don't like the price. LOL! It wouldn't support sound either, which would be important for kiddy programs. I suppose I could run a USB audio adaptor, but that would add even more to the cost...

The TV solution will work well. They used to fiddle with the TV buttons on occasion, but have lately stopped messing whith them, because more often than not, they turn the TV off and the video they're watching "goes away". The 32" CRT is otherwise "bomb proof", they can't move it an inch, and the glass is scrubbable to a degree that the LCD isn't. The side door where the AV components are is baby-proofed as well. It's low-tech, but we just slam the door on a disused piece of RCA audio patch cable and it wedges the door shut tighter than they have the strength to open it.

It'll be a bonus because with an IR KB/mouse we can then surf from the TV (Albiet low-rez) use it as an MP3 media server through the stereo, and we can also use it as a photo viewer. (We do this now on the TV for family, but just dump the pic's on our camera, which has an AV output.) This way I can just share the music and pic folders over our LAN.

I've wanted a media-center/TV PC for some time, and wanted to do it on the cheap, but I've realized I can just kill two birds with one stone, and it'll reduce clutter and the footprint from their playspace we were losing.

 
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