TouchTop 

A Modular Smart Desk Overlay For Schools

TouchTop is the first and only smart surface overlay designed to enhance a school's existing investment in desks and student work surfaces.  With our snap-in accessory system, modular power and PC options, TouchTop is specially designed to empower students of all abilities.  Our removable USB battery pack charges a student's mobile device,  making it easy to keep their devices charged throughout an entire school day.   

Students and schools embrace mobile technology like never before, and there's a lot of room for improvement.  Education has moved to a more hands-on approach, including "flipped classrooms", experiential learning and the maker movement.  The cornerstone  of this approach is a belief and understanding that students better retain knowledge and learn more deeply when they collaborate in small groups or get hands-on with their lesson material. 

TouchTop is designed to address these needs, giving students amazing new capabilities at their desk and on their work surfaces to fully embrace mobile, cloud and accessible technologies.  Designed to fit on existing surfaces, TouchTop brings additional storage, protection, power and computing capabilities and allows those surfaces to be customized to each student's needs and abilities.

Join us on journey to create innovative technology for students all over the world.   

TouchTop enables mobile devices such as phones and tablets to continuously charge throughout the school day. This ensures student productivity remains uninterrupted while using their devices.  TouchTop also includes accessories designed for additional storage capabilities and device management solutions without impeding on their existing work area. 

Getting power to a student's desk is difficult in most classrooms.  So, we spent a lot of time focusing on how teachers and students would like to see this problem solved.  TouchTop provides an easily removable battery module that simply slides into the side of the unit.  

Once docked in the module bay, power is delivered to a student's mobile device for charging.  The USB charging port is exposed within our smartphone and tablet stand and easily accessible by a student sitting at the desk.

Storing and using a student's mobile device is now possible while not interfering with the materials on the surface of their desk.  Our universal device stand is designed to support small form factor smartphones up to the largest iPads.  All accessories can easily connect to our standard accessory port located on the back and sides of TouchTop.  This allows for perfect positioning of their device for their needs or for collaborative work groups.

Our stand also articulates on 3 different axis which allows it to be moved into just the right position.  Rotation from landscape to portrait modes, vertical and horizontal adjustments allow a device to be positioned correctly for a student or to share screen contents in small group collaborations.

Our easy to use accessory attachment system allows students and teachers to adapt a student's work space to meet each lesson's or student's unique needs.  Our initial accessory we've designed is the universal smartphone stand to address the storage and protective needs students have while using smart technology during their classes.

From storage systems to hold books to storage systems for STEM and robotics kits or art supplies, the expansion capability of TouchTop is nearly limitless.  Testing and privacy partitions along with articulating arms and stands that hold external displays can enhance ease of use and accessiblilty for every student's needs.

Schools and students struggle to keep devices charged and in-use throughout an entire school day.  We met this challenge head-on with a simple, removable battery solution that can be easily removed to allow overnight charging to keep our student's up and running.

Rugged, durable and safe are the key design goals for our battery system.  The student's charging port is elevated above the surface of TouchTop to avoid spills and not get in the way of student papers and materials while their devices are in use and charging.

Like our removable battery, TouchTop has a removable PC module that slides easily into the unit and brings a full PC experience to our students.  Our TouchTop Scholar unit, which includes a built-in touch display, automatically connects to our PC when docked into the PC module bay.

We started our journey in education technology teaching coding and apps development to K12 students, so we are working hard to deliver TouchTop as an opportunity to embrace STEM and experiential learning for our students.  Our roadmap includes Windows 10, Windows 10 IoT Core edition, Raspberry Pi and Android modules to expose students to the depths of amazing technology available today.  

TouchTop will initially support the popular, traditional 18" x 24" student desk.  We will design updated base layers and surface molds for our units to fit many different styles and size desks.  Contact us for more information to build units to meet your specific needs.

TouchTop Student

Unit Dimensions: 24"w X  18"d X 0.4"h

 Unit Weight:  3.88lbs

Mounting:  Handles mount option - 6"w X 2.75"h

Ports:  1 USB 2.0 charging only port

TouchTop Scholar

Unit Dimensions: 24"w X  18"d X 0.4"h

 Unit Weight:  5.1lbs

Mounting:  Handles mount option - 6"w X 2.75"h

Display: 15" HD, 10-point multi-touch

Ports: 1 USB 2.0 data port (connected to PC module), 1 USB 2.0 charging only port

Universal Mobile Device Stand

Dimensions: 9"h X 2.5"w (at base)

Adjustments: 2 vertical axis push-button adjustments, 1 axis (rotation) adjustment to rotate device into landscape or portrait position

Clamps: Minimum clasp width 2.5", maximum clasp 10"

Ports: 1 USB 2.0 charging port for student devices, supports Android and iOS devices, charging cable supplied or students can use their own cable

Battery Module

Dimensions: 5"w X 6"d X 0.39h

Ports: 2 USB 2.0 5V-2A output charging ports, 1 USB 2.0 5V-1.1A output charging port,

  1 micro-USB input charging port

PC Module

Dimensions: 5"w X 6"d X 0.39h

Ports: 1 USB 2.0 5V-2A input power port, 1 USB 2.0 data I/O port, 1 HDMI output port

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 x86/32-bit

Processor: Intel Atom Quad Core Z3735F 

RAM: 2GB memory

Storage: 32GB eMMC storage

Wireless:  Bluetooth 4.0,  802.11 b/g/n Integrated Network Adapter

Thank you for supporting TouchTop and the students we endeavor to support.  After the past few years of personal investment of time, effort, volunteer teaching and resources and seeing first-hand the impact we can have for students, our goal is to deliver a cutting edge solution to our students.  Your support means so much to us and our TouchTop customers!

We are focusing initial sales and perks distributions to USA and Canadian customers and backers.  We are open to engaging with anyone from all over the world and we will do our best to work with anyone that has a passion for helping students succeed.  Please don't hesitate to contact us via IGG or directly - info (at) apptouchtech (dot) com.

As we embark on our journey there are several milestones we will focus upon and we're hopeful that with your help we can deliver the world's most advanced, easy to use, affordable and amazing technology possible for our students.  We will have several channels open to solicit feedback from students, teachers, administrators and parents to deliver solutions that fit our user's needs and budgets.  

Our skilled and dedicated team includes an experienced software developer, a passionate educator and amazing and talented product designers.  We're based in Atlanta, GA, so please reach out and let's work together to build an amazing solution for students all over the world.

TouchTop started with our founder's involvement with his son's special needs learning journey.  After volunteering his time to help the StarFall.com team build an iPad version of Learning to Read so his son could use their amazing content on a tablet, Mr. Douglass' passion for creating educational technology has only grown over the past several years.  

With over 20 years of software development experience, our founder's focus on user experience and accessibility technology along with a devotion to supporting children with gross or fine motor control issues, TouchTop embodies our talents and focus on helping all students use technology.

As a Code.org coding volunteer teaching coding to hundreds of students in that Atlanta area, Mr. Douglass expanded his support for schools by building collaborative media centers focused on touch technology.  Thousands of students have used the solutions built by our founder and after hearing about the challenges facing school's successful adoption of technology from teachers, students and administrators throughout North America, the idea for TouchTop was born.  

After a few years of hard work along with a commitment to delivering a great product, we are excited to launch TouchTop with the help of the amazing IndieGoGo community.

Thank you for your support!

Which models of TouchTop are you building?

TouchTop Student is our base model of TouchTop.  It will come standard with our smart device stand, USB battery module and customized graphics to match your schools colors, logo and them.

TouchTop Scholar is our model that will include our modular PC and built-in touch display.  This is a more advanced version of TouchTop that will require unlocking our stretch goals and then followed by an extensive period of pilot testing with several schools.  We are excited to bring something amazing to students!

How do we become a pilot testing partner school or institution?

We have several schools in our area lined up to help us with extensive, on-going testing of product designs and new features and accessories.  We are excited to hear from you and would like to expand our pilot testing programs internationally.  Please reach out and let's discuss your needs and how you would like to use and shape TouchTop's future with your students.  You can contact us at info (AT) apptouchtech (DOT) com.

Do you offer consulting services or expertise on mobile or cloud technology for schools?

Absolutely!  From Google Classroom, Microsoft Classroom and the entire Google Apps and Microsoft Office 365 Education suite of apps and services, we are experts in cloud, mobile app development and IT administration.  Please reach out to us, our roadmap includes extensive software offerings that we are building and will both bundle into TouchTop and sell separately to enhance the use, accessibility and effectiveness of cloud classrooms and apps.

What type of warranty is offered with TouchTop?

All TouchTop products will include a comprehensive warranty and support program.  A standard 1 year warranty will be offered with additional, more extensive support offerings available.  Classrooms are challenging work environments, products used in classrooms must be rugged and well designed.  We are dedicated to using durable materials, excellent workmanship and building products that can sustain the demands of K12 and higher education students.