Semester Final Project — A desk drawer with hidden compartment

Background

The manga, and later the anime adaptation Death Note, was one of my all-time favorites. There were so many strategies, wit, and clever tricks in it that really impressed me when I was little. Among all the amazing plot points, one design that I still remember to this day is the drawer with the hidden compartment scene, in which the main protagonist, Light Yagami, concealed his dangerous Death Note.

So...you saw how it worked, now what?

Fortunately—or unfortunately—in the original manga, there’s already a very detailed depiction of how to make such a drawer. The mechanism was elegant and efficient: anyone who didn’t know how to open the drawer properly would complete the circuit hidden beneath it, which would ignite the flammable material placed around the notebook and set it on fire.

Obviously, I don’t want to put my stuff, desk, or dorm room at risk of being burned down. Most of the things I want to hide have sentimental value, not because they’re illegal. More importantly, I don’t want Neil to think he’s teaching or imparting knowledge that could be used by an arsonist in the future. So, I decided to alter the mechanism a little bit.

Proposed Variations

Introduction

The first generation of the PlayStation 5 launched on November 12, 2020. It came in two configurations: one with a disc drive and one without. Most people, myself included, chose the disc-drive version, since that was the standard for both the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. Regardless of the choice, the PS5 is noticeably heavier than its predecessors. The disc-drive version measures 390 × 104 × 260 mm and weighs 4.5 kg. To put this into context, the PlayStation 4—released seven years earlier—was about 40% lighter.

Even though the later PlayStation 5 Pro has a slimmer design, measuring 388 × 89 × 216 mm and weighing 3.1 kg (about 32% lighter than the original PS5), it still looks quite bulky when you try to fit it into carry-on luggage.

Approach and Potential Challenges

Naturally, the oversimplifed steps should look like this:

1. Take the playstation 5 apart, analyze the functions of each part
2. Figure out which part(s) is making the console so big and explore ways to shrink it
3.Make a new case and put all the parts into this new case(Hopefully)
Luckily, I don't need to take apart my console just yet, there are people who have done that already. Even Sony did an official one.😄