sharkbait: injection molded yo-yo

(spring 2021)

WHAT IS IT?:

As part of MIT’s 2.008 Design and Manufacturing II course in Spring 2021, teams of 5 were tasked to design and manufacture 50 plastic yoyo’s in the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity (LMP).

My team chose the theme of “sharkbait” for our yoyo, and our design consisted of five unique injection molded parts and one thermoformed part, for a total of six unique components.

We designed a yoyo body, cap, mid-plate, a bitten surfboard, shark fins, and a water pattern/texture.

ROLE:

I worked as a member of a team of five students to design and manufacture 50 plastic yo-yo’s.

As part of the team, I design the body and the center mid-plate of the yoyo for pins to insert into in Fusion360, then manufactured the tooling for those parts on a HAAS CNC mill.

After machining tooling out of aluminum stock for each of the plastic injection molded components, we then injection molded the pieces, and using run charts, we were able to refine our design to account for resulting part shrinkage and defects. This ensured that the press fit of the body and the cap was sufficient to pass a drop test from about 1.5 meters high.

I also helped thermoform the water texture overlaying the blue “water” plate, operating the thermoform machine and then punching out the pattern on the die.

As part of the team, I helped us stay on track to finish by the final presentation through Gantt charts and delegation of work to teammates.

SKILLS:

• design and manufacturing

• 3D modeling (Fusion360)

• machining and fabrication

• design documentation

• project management