Holy shit. That's amazing. I use a Geekdesk (http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/the-geekdesk-writin...) and it cost twice as much. Is it twice as good? Maybe. But even something that's not as good but half the price will be within range of MANY more people.
One question: do the Ikea versions remember their heights? That to me is a killer feature, because trying to figure out the "right" spot every time a desk goes up and down would make me insane.
I'm having a tough time tracking down anybody saying it does, in fact, have memory functionality. That's certainly a feature you'd want to advertise, so it seems reasonable to assume that it doesn't have that particular feature.
Do you think it would or have you actually experienced it?
Personally, I don't miss that at all. In fact, I think the variation is good for my back, I often move my table up and down little bits while sitting or standing, just because I change my posture.
I recently built myself a standing desk using an Ikea shelf for the base, which was around 2.5' and using floor flanges and conduit to raise the desktop to the height I needed. I love it. Some tips:
- get an anti-fatigue mat to stand on.
- Ikea desktops should not be cut to fit unless necessary. I needed to lop about a foot off, and was surprised that the core was literally cardboard.
- consider adjustable feet below the desk to fine-tune the height for your needs, then use commodity parts for the rest. It's MUCH simpler than trying to rethread pipe.
They're esoteric enough that I'd be surprised to see a reasonably-priced one.
I've made a simple desk in the past with an ikea top like this one http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S29870932/ and four lengths of 100mmx100mm planed softwood for the legs, and four big (10mmx200mm) countersunk screws down through the top into the legs.
It was surprisingly sturdy, and takes a few minutes to assemble once you've got the parts.
I don't know why the GP poster is being downvoted. For most of the world's population, $500 is not cheap.
I find it difficult to categorize the desk, a tool for productivity, as a luxury. I know that's just personal bias speaking, though.
The market supplies alternatives of varying degrees of quality, functionality, and design for ordinary desks. I wish there was equal demand for standing desks. Nothing ever seems to bring down the prices for them.
For $100k/year workers (the main HN audience), it's cheap. Especially considering it, along with a chair and a computer, is by far the most important tools for said audience.
> For $100k/year workers (the main HN audience), it's cheap
So you don't believe the tale that the primary audience for Hacker News are actually working on startups?
If someone can't afford US$500, they can make a desk out of a plank of wood on top of some bricks or old furniture. A standup desk is a minor modification. One can then put a bunk bed for sleeping above the desk, and thus share the room with co-founders. Co-founders can then take turns sleeping in the car.
Ikea (in the UK at least) used to do a great fixed standing desk with piles of useful shelf space above and below, but I think it is now discontinued. I was lucky enough to get one for home free from a colleague who moved house and it didn't fit in their new arrangement in the new place.
A quick search here shows small standing height units for as little as 250UKP including VAT and motorised ones for ~500UKP - so I expect you'll find some fixed height examples available in your state in the $250 range (assuming that prices follow the 1UKP->1USD pattern seen in what I pay for electronics and similar goods rather than the actual exchange rate which is currently closer to 1UKP->1.6USD - that may be an ill-informed assumption).
Another option for home if you have the skills (or friends that do!) is to make one. Before I got the free desk we were going to take the tools to breakfast bar furniture (which a friend had going spare after some renovations and which legs of the right sort of height) and install it in that corner of the home office.
Common cinder blocks / gray blocks measure 16" x 8" x 8" and cost about $1.30. I stack two in order to get 16" of lift and place a stack under each corner of a traditional flat desk. I actually have two desks, one for keyboards and another for monitors, so I needed 8 stacks, but you get the idea. It provides a huge, stable flat work surface for $10.40 per desk.
If you are shorter, half-height blocks are available to get to 12" of lift, or if your are even shorter, just use one layer and get 8".
I also bought a 29" wooden bar stool at Wal-Mart for $20 to take brief breaks for standing.
A couple years ago when standing desks were first starting to take off the Ikea Jerker was the go-to. It's not adjustable, and ran ~$100 at the time. Craigslist/Ikea should turn one up for $100-~150 now. I've been using one for nearly 3 years (not always 8 hours/day) and it suits me very well. Get a good mat to stand on and a nice monitor mount and you're set.
(that said, $500 for an adustable one is very very reasonable. that price was unimaginable 2 years ago.)
I have an Ergotron sit stand desk. Seems fine, cost around $650 with free shipping. Very nice surface. I keep about 45lbs of gear on my desk and it requires notable effort to raise it, can't do it with one hand. Perhaps I need to adjust the tension a little more to increase lift, but haven't really bothered to since I typically stand and don't yoyo up and down all day.
Speaking as a parent: do you know how you help students focus in the classroom?
Stop preventing them from socializing during lunch. Allow them to get outside for more than 15 minutes so they can work off some of that excess energy, both physical and mental. Stop helicoptering around them on the playground and let them be kids.
Everything else (aside from diagnosed learning disabilities) is just treating the damn symptoms caused by "experts" attempting to "fix" what hasn't been broken in schools for decades.
But don't take my word for it. Talk to a few involved parents of elementary school children. Are the kids forced to be quiet during their 15-20 minute lunch break? Have some traditional recess games such as tag been banned? Are troublesome students punished by being kept in during recess?
I agree completely: It isn't standing desks that are needed, it is more actual movement and breaks from sitting. I'll admit I would have used it some as a student, but I'd have been just as happy with a space on the floor I could move about on. Recess and down time is important, not just movement, which the article tends to overlook. Finland does this already - less lecture and breaks more often and have had fantastic results.
In fact, recess and free time are something I noticed quickly after moving from the US to Norway. The nearby elementary almost always has children outside playing. Actually playing. In wet sand, in puddles, climbing, running, soccer... so many things kids do that they would forbidden to do in the states.
When I was in 5th grade, we did not have chairs or anything for our violin class. It wasn't fun, we had to stand for the entire class (which to 5th grade me was very annoying.) We got to sit down for 30 seconds in the middle of class as a "rest period"
That didn't make me want to go to the class. If this gets implemented you might end up making kids dislike the classroom even more.
If you pair a tall shop stool with a standing desk, like the Stand2Learn desk and stool shown in the article, you don't have to stand 100% of the time and the desk doesn't have to be adjustable between a sitting and standing position.
I had this kind of setup in a drafting class in high school and a few art classes in college, and now I've spent the last 5 months with a similar setup for computer use at work and home. I probably stand 2/3 of the time and sit 1/3 of the time, and sometimes I hop up and down to really get the blood flowing or pace around when I'm frustrated with something or trying to wrap my head around an abstract concept. I feel significantly healthier these days than I did when I was sitting in a desk chair 11-14 hours a day (combined work and home).
Just as an aside, if you're going to stand and read a book or use a tablet or phone, you'll want an angled platform to avoid neck strain.
I think a better solution is one of the several pedal desks available today[0]. Kids who are tired can relax without disrupting class or their learning, and those who have energy to get out can pedal all day.
Standing in class all day would be a nightmare. I'm transitioning to a personal standing desk right now, but I would NEVER want to use one in class - school is physically tension-inducing and uncomfortable for a myriad of reasons and forcing students to stand up would only exacerbate that problem.
Off the main topic, but perhaps relevant.... based on personal experience, exercises like biking (esp stationary) and rowing (leg part) can cause piriformis syndrome[1] if not complemented with a set of actions targeting orthogonal actions/muscle movement.
During the winter I knew I would not go to the gym, so I purchased an exercise bike and used it religiously every two days. I was exercising but there was a pain in the buttocks and it was getting worse and I finally had to stop. Sitting at work caused pain after 1 hr, then 30 minutes, then 15. Driving to work caused pain. Stopping the bike did not help alleviate the problem. Went to the Dr who referred me to a physio. None of the exercises given to me helped. It took me a while to diagnose what I was experiencing - googling symptoms finally led me to a set of exercises that has helped incredibly. I am not fixed yet; I have to do the exercises ideally twice a day or at a minimum once every two days. It is much much better but it was torture when undiagnosed.
So if you have pain in the "middle of each or both buttocks" when sitting for a small amount of time, consider piriformis syndrome. If you feel you are constantly clenching your buttocks read up on it as well. The exercises to get relief are very simple, can be done lying down, and start showing promise after about 2 days. The exercises I do are on Youtube.
Which reminds me... I need to call my physio and let her know... hopefully this information helps someone else.
In the latter part of high school, I began standing in the classes where I both knew the teacher fairly well and didn't think I would bother anyone else by doing so. Since there weren't any standing desks, I would either stand myself near a wall or an unused desk I could lean on and carry a clipboard, or I would occasionally grab a music stand or an unused lectern. I had never felt particularly uncomfortable in a normal desk before, but for the first time I really felt unconstrained by my environment. I'm naturally somewhat fidgety, and gaining the ability to readjust my body comfortably without bothering anyone and to pace around the classroom (even in a very small area) really allowed me to get my blood flowing more easily and prevented me from being distracted from any discomfort I had in a desk built for people who were both smaller than I was at the time and who were not left-handed. Talking to the teacher (or even to other students) feels much more intimate, as your vision isn't obstructed by the back of someone's head. Something I didn't expect was that when participating in class discussions, I felt more expressive, as I tend to move my hands and arms when I speak, something I couldn't do easily in a sitting desk.
I wonder, though, whether or not some of both the student's and my improvements were caused by being on a different plane from the rest of the class. I also wonder what effect having some standing students in a classroom would have on the seated children. I was once told that I was somewhat intimidating when I was the only one standing in the classroom.
I don't know whether standing desks are the best option for everyone, but they're certainly a better option for some, and I'm glad to see standing desks being given greater consideration nowadays.
Is there any reason we need to buy a special desk just so kids can stand? IMO you could get the same result by allowing kids to stand up if they need to or even better: stop killing recess, defunding gym, and banning dodgeball. Besides that, I don't think I would like the standing desk thing. I'd want to sit sometimes and lean back in a chair.
I used to get trouble in school for standing at my desk rather than sitting... They thought that I wasn't paying attention because of some behavioral problem.
It turns out that I was finishing/understanding my work early and getting bored.
I think that the standing desk with bar stool combination that someone else mentioned would be a great idea for schools!
I use a standing desk for work, the majority of the time I sit on my chair. But around 2:30pm, the ability to stand up for the rest of the day is a life saver. I know if I had a standing desk thorough high school, my 5th & 6th block classes would have been much easier to stay awake through.
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S19022530/
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S49022270/