D1 Yoyos

Our yoyo was loosely inspired by the brass rat which most years features a Boston and Cambridge skyline and is in many ways a trophy of one’s time at MIT.  My team set out to design a yoyo that would look as elegant as possible.  Our yoyos have a laser-etched and then waterjet metal insert piece on either side - one side has a design of the Boston skyline and one side has a design of the Cambridge skyline (Figure 1a and Figure 1b) - which is then surrounded by a wood, laser-cut, ring (Figure 2).  These two components were insert molded to form two insert plates (one of the Boston side and one of the Cambridge side) (Figure 3).  This insert molding process allowed the injected plastic to fix the metal disks to the wooden rings and also allowed the injected black plastic to fill in the outline of the night sky in the metal disk in order to create the dark night’s sky around the metal buildings.  The two insert plates snap fit into the base pieces.  For a ...