Copyright Michael Snively 2010
Yo-yos
Design and Manufacturing II is a class that teaches the principles and methods of manufacturing various products. For the lab component of the class, groups of 6 work together to design and mass produce a yo-yo.
The inspiration for the design came from the Harry Nilsson song concerning certain green fruits in certain large, brown nuts.
The yo-yo was designed using SolidWorks and the molds created in MasterCAM. Using CNC mills and lathes we created a series of molds to produce all the components for the yo-yo. In total, there were five injection molded pieces of plastic per yo-yo and two thermoformed pieces of plastic.
The above molds created the following pieces, the interior of the yo-yo.
With the molds built and tested, the production runs began. 200 of each of the above pieces were created in the correct colors, brown and green.
They were then hand-assembled into sub-components of the final yo-yo, 200 in all.
When the rings and other components of the yo-yo were complete, the final yo-yos were assembled. While some groups strove only to have a novelty yo-yo, ignoring function and performance, our group strove to have a very low profile yo-yo without sacrificing aesthetics. This yo-yo has an average of 3 components more than any of the other yo-yos created, but is oftentimes half the width, resulting in tolerances that are nearly non-existent. The end product was solid, compact, and looked exactly like a lime and a coconut.
