Sunday, September 29, 2013

Modeling the Parts

Over the past 2 days, our team has modeled and assembled the yoyo design.

We ended up having to make a small design change while assembling the yoyo, because we discovered that the metal ring could be seen underneath the Bugs Bunny cutout. In order to change this, we changed the white thermoformed cup that was going to sit around the axel post to just a die cut white circle out of the thermal form sheet plastic.

The finalized design looks fantastic!

Now to finish the drawings and deliverables for tomorrow...

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Sketching the YY Design


Today our team met to figure out the design of our yoyo.

The first design decision we had to make was how we wanted to model the rings. We discussed a two different options: 1 ring with a grove in the body, 2 concentric rings and 2 thermoformed rings


Design with 1 ring embedded in body



Design for 2 injection molded concentric circles

Design for 2 Thermoformed rings

We realized we wouldn't have the colors we wanted for the thermoformed rings, so that option was eliminated. Also we were concerned about inserting the Bugs Bunny cut out inside the body for the 1 ring design, so we eventually decided on using 2 injection molded circles.

We then sketched out the design for the yoyo.




At the end of the session today, we split up the parts between everyone on the team:
  • Body: Nathan & David
  • Basketball Thermoform & White Thermoform Insert: Steve
  • Bugs Bunny Insert: Kirsten & Joey
  • Rings: Sarah & Rohun
The team plans on meeting on Saturday to compile all the pieces together.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Team Brainstorming

Today our team met for the first day to decide on a design.

They began by coming up with multiple categories, which they then ideated within for specific ideas.


We then narrowed down into 7 specific yoyo designs.
Each member selected a design and drew an idea.






We got together and voted on our favorite designs. Eventually it came down to Scooby-Doo or Space Jam. After a hard vote, we picked Space Jam!

For the rest of the lab, we talked about different features and elements we wanted to incorporate in our yoyo design.

For the features, we decided that we wanted to have a butterfly design because we all personally felt that it allowed for the best guidance of the string in the yoyo. We also decided that we wanted to add some weight to our yoyo because it allowed for better yoyo dynamics.

After talking about the different designs we could make, we picked the air jordans logo with Bugs Bunny instead of Michael Jordan. 


In terms of specific design features, we determined we wanted a window to look into the bugs bunny design. For this window we decided we wanted to have a basketball logo molded onto the window.

More designs to come later...

















Meet the Team


Team Member (from Left to Right): Joey Campion, Nathan Spielberg, David Bian, Rohun Kulkarni, Kirsten Lim, Sarah Fay, and Steve Sullivan 
Team Special Stuff, a group of 7 MIT MechE students, has been challenged to make the best yoyo ever. In order to do so, they reconnected with their childhood memories and selected a yoyo design based off of Space Jam. For their design, they decided to merge the classic Air Jordan jumpman logo with Bugs Bunny as a tribute to this iconic 90s movie. The logo is surrounded by Loony Toons logo circles in the iconic red and orange colors. This blog will document their design and manufacturing process!