Harsha Pillai

Night sky inspired Plush Night Light

I have always been inspired by the night sky, and ironically growing up I was terrified of the dark. Putting these two ideas together, I started brainstorming ideas for a plush night light which would light up and make children feel more comfortable in the night inspired by the night sky. During this process I was interested in incorporating magnets into my ideas and having two be a part of one. So I also became interested in the idea of shortening distances for those in long distance partnerships, whether platonic or romantic.

I started a little backwards, I made my first proposal sketch and because I have no sewing experience I wanted to try to make it and see what I could learn from my process. The following is my sketch I made for the night light I prototyped

And the prototype I made:

Then I started some other sketch ideas. I was excited about the use of magnets and thought more about the composition of two plushes together. This proposal includes cut outs and fitting a star into the moon with additional stitching details

My final proposal is inspired by the “story” which got me into space. The minute I heard this fact, I immediately fell in love with the narrative of the universe, and its the simple fact that the earth and moon were once, one piece. For this piece I also start characterising the pieces adding arms and legs, and more white stitch details.

I am leaning towards my third sketch currently, with a crescent moon and a small earth. I enjoy the use of magnets to attach these pieces together. The magnets I used in my prototype were a little weak so I would have to find something stronger, and also figure out if there is a way to keep the magnet in place for where it should stay.

Google Chromecast Teardown

Completed Disassembly

Tools

Mosaic Spatula
Mosaic Double Ended Hook
Tweezers
Precision Screw Driver

Steps

Use the Mosaic spatula and double ended hook tool to poke at the slight gap between the casing.
Separate the top casing from the motherboard and HDMI cable. The casing will have a heat sink pad with some thermal paste residue. Use the Double ended hook to help in taking it apart from the EMI (Electromagnetic Interference) Shield.
The EMI Shield is not soldered shut so we can use the Mosaic spatula to remove it from the circuit board.
Using the precision screw driver unscrew the two T-5 screws holding down the connector bracket which is connecting the HDMI Cable to the the motherboard. This will also separate the motherboard from the bottom casing as well.
Using the Mosaic spatula remove the EMI Shield on the other side of the motherboard as well, to reveal the motherboard by itself. The motherboard has 5 chips:
- Marvell Avastar VHT WLAN, Bluetooth, NFC, and FM Receiver
- Samsung 4 GB DDR3L SDRAM — Memory, need constant power to hold memory
- Marvell Armada 1500 Mini Plus dual core ARM cortex-A7 Media Processor — Digital streaming in real time
- Toshiba 2 GB NAND Flash memory– Memory that can be rewritten, doesn’t need constant power
- MRVL Semiconductor DC-DC Regulator- Converts voltages for two connections working at different voltage levels

My thoughts

The motherboard is the heart of the device, and would be more interested in understanding the connections between the different chips. Through some research I was able to understand most of the differences between the chips, but I am still pretty amazed by the speed of these things and how fast they communicate to each other.
Thermal paste can get messy, and seemingly anywhere? Even with the casing, it seems like the paste was a little over the motherboard, I was able to clean up using my tools. I wonder if this could be causing overheating within a device and have led it to not working ? Although I didn’t have a TV to try and see if it would work initially but just a thought.

Hi, I am Harsha!

I am Third-Culture-Kid, primarily raised in Germany, but I have been in America since 2016. I spent two years in upstate NY studying Computer Science before spontaneously transferring to Chicago to pursue my Bachelors of Architecture. I worked most recently as an architectural designer before arriving at the MFA PoD program.

Growing up I was always more science-math inclined, and changing into Design was a challenge at first. The spontaneous decision came through curiosity, and wanting to have a more cohesive well-rounded education with both technical and humanities classes. By the time I started Architecture school, I hadn’t drawn in 4 years and didn’t have any ‘making’ hobbies. It was intimidating, but by the time I graduated, I was confidently practicing fabrication skills and also had a whole new perspective on the world through design.

As I started working in the real world, I found that I enjoyed designing at smaller scales and various mediums rather than just through physical architectural works. I decided to pursue my masters in pursuit to define more of my design values, goals, and to have fun experimenting with more mediums of design and art. I am excited to combine my prior knowledge and put more physicality to my computing background, and explore other scales of design.

Outside of design I love traveling and visiting museums and galleries, reading design art theory/history books, workout classes, and I’m trying to make an effort in sketching in a new nyc neighbourhood every weekend! Also at my previous university, my friends and I started a student zine, the ig is @cumuluszine, and we ran an art gallery space together.