These projects were worked on throughout the semester but with no free time, I haven’t been able to write about them individually as I’ve been working on them
When I first came back from the summer, I was determined to make some high performance ROUND aluminum yoyos for myself.
With the success of the Boost, my design the YoYoFactory produced earlier this year (which I then used to win Nationals and place 2nd at Worlds 🙂 ), YoYoFactory gave me the go ahead to design a new yo-yo.
This time, the goal was to maintain the high performance characteristics of the Boost (ie: long spin time, stability, weight, etc), but at a cheaper pricepoint ($45 compared to $75).
Thus the development of the Flyback commenced
As usual, I only have access to CNC mills, so making round objects is rather tricky and time consuming. In particular machining a round object of a yo-yo requires refixturing, and machining all sides of this round part so it’s rather tricky.
The first operation is simple
The tricky part comes with refixturing this piece and machining the opposite side. I’m still experimenting with the best methods, but this time I opted for using a 3d printed fixture, where I superglued and bolted the yo-yo to a cavity mold that I printed on a Stratysys
Machining was rather straightforward and I was happy with the result. The yo-yo turned out very nice, and although it wasn’t quite perfectly manufactured, it still served it’s purpose in showing me the design.
A couple tweaks and I had the design to send out to the manufacturer in China
Now the Flyback is almost ready for its release this upcoming Spring!
Another project I worked on and off for fun was the return of high performance square yo-yos. I was extremely happy with the progress on the aluminum square yoyo I had made earlier, (which YoYoFactory and I are currently working on producing as well), but I wanted to make some more fun ones while experimenting with some other machining practices.
First step: Acrylic yo-yo!
I know it sounds like a terrible idea because acrylic is rather brittle, and yo-yos (especially square ones which bite into surfaces) have to be durable, but I had just received a large chunk of acrylic and I was curious.
The acrylic milled beautifully, leaving an optically clear surface
The yo-yo was too light so I pressed in some aluminum weight rings
I gave this yo-yo as a gift to a professor and I’m happy to say that I watched him slam the yo-yo into the ground for about an hour and it’s still intact and sitting on his desk!
Along the same lines as the square acrylic yo-yo, I decided to make a polycarbonate one as well to see how it polycarb machined, and to make a more durable version. The polycarb left a slightly more frosted surface, so I made some shiny brass weight rings to enhance the appearance
Alex Hattori 