Hi there.
As a maker it is sometimes annoying when doing an outdoors project and realising that the code on the Arduino needs to be tweaked and uploaded again, especially if it is raining and all I have is my top-tier expensive laptop. In such situations I wish I had a ruggedized laptop.
A fully rugged laptop such as the Panasonic Toughbook is well outside the pricerange for most consumers with pricetags well over 3-4000USD. There are however quite a few of the older models available on ebay for as little as 30USD. It would be cool to see if it was possible to make your refurbish one of these older "as is" Toughbooks from ebay, by putting in a single board computer like the Raspberry Pi or an Odroid. What would make the build perfect was if it was possible to repurpose as much of the original laptop as possible (LCD, keyboard, connectors, battery) as these original parts withstand dust, shock and water to an extent.