◎ How to Fix the Space Bar on the AlphaSmart 3000

It happened: I broke My Precious.

But don't worry: I fixed it. That is, I fixed it after I broke the crap out of it in its somewhat "less-broken" state. This is a dramatic retelling of what happened.

Space bar fell off;
Tried to jam it back in;
Broke one prong;
Tried to jam it in again;
Broke other prong;
Realized prongs were essential to space bar functionality;
Superglued prongs;
Prongs said "LOL WUT NO WE AIN'T GONNA FIT YO";
Cried;
Epiphany, grabbed duct tape;
Duct taped that sucker;
Magic.

Basically, there's a big ] shaped wire held in place by two prongs on the space bar, which in turn allows the bar to be depressed and released evenly. By breaking off the prongs, there was nothing attaching the wire to the bar, resulting in a useless AlphaSmart 3000. (I mean, whowantstowritelikethisandhavetoedititlater?) With the prongs broken beyond repair, I superglued small pieces of duct tape to loosely secure the wire to the underside of the bar without inhibiting its ability to move. It's an odd fix, but it gets the job done.

Source

(Do you see where the metal lines up against the underside of the space bar? That's where you'd need to put your tape if you, like me, accidentally KO'd those two prongs holding it in place.)