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Picture perfect

It's a little past midnight (basically Wednesday morning) and we're putting finishing touches on our yoyos. This past week has been a whirlwind, but we finally made it through. Check it out!



We just finished assembling all 50 yoyos, string and all. Here's a summary of what we the last few days.

Thursday, 5/9

  • Tested the photo molds with the key — it worked! We found that the photo piece shrunk slightly more than anticipated, so we remachined the photo mold to be a bit wider at the based so that it can't slip into the yoyo body cavity. Also touched up the mold bottoms with a finer stepover to be perfectly smooth. 
  • Put together our first full assembly. So satisfying! Featuring a magnetic click.
Friday, 5/10
  • A few more touch-ups on the photo mold.
  • Sanded molds so that machining features didn't show up on injection molded parts.
  • Tested photo molds
  • Honed injection molding parameters for top piece
  • Filed down thermoform die after realizing the piece did not fit after shrinkage

Saturday, 5/11

  • Filed the die too much... so re 3D printed the thermoform die.
  • First production run of the photo piece! Decided to make it purple.
  • Modified and recut shoulder bolts for body printing
Sunday, 5/12
  • Production run (nearly) of the top camera piece
  • Tested out thermoform die
Monday, 5/13
  • Finished top piece production run
  • Bottom piece production run
  • Thermoform lens production run & cutting
Tuesday, 5/14
  • Body production run
  • ASSEMBLY
  • Powerpoint and this blog.

It's a little crazy to think that we're (nearly) on the flip side of this whole process. At the end of it all, we know we have learned an insane amount! Beyond just looking at things and being able to tell how they were made (which is pretty cool already), we all were talking about how we've internalized the design process and can easily follow and understand the choices that are made. If we did this yo-yo again, there are so many steps we would take differently! We improved our team skills and learned how to communicate and collaborate for technical work. 

Overall, we're really excited and happy with the finished product. We're most excited that it's new! And when we think about how many new things we tried — the registration, the magnetic mechanism, the pegs, the non-circular non-symmetric design — we're really happy to have a piece in our hand that works. 

Huge huge thank you and shout out to Wade, Joe, and Dan for all your help, for being so patient with us, and for keeping the shop open at many unreasonable hours. We appreciate it so much. 

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