The Yo-Yo for Him & Her

The His/Hers Yo-yo was designed and manufactured in the MIT Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity (LMP).  The design originated from the desire to 'misplace' a mundane and ubiquitous image in order to challenge the banality of its message.  In choosing the perfect image, we came upon the male/female toilet logo.  Its unisex, gender-equality message targets the less represented yo-yo consuming population -- women.  Of course for those partial to gender inequality, our yo-yos also come with double female and double male faces.

There are three plastic parts to the yo-yo : an inner hub, an outer ring, and an artistic centerpiece. The yo-yo mold designs were created using SolidWorks; these designs were subsequently regenerated into MasterCAM G code.  The molds were manufactured out of aluminum stock with CNC machines.  Both the inner hubb and the outer ring were injection molded while the centerpiece which bore the male/female symbol was thermoformed.  Once the molds were made and tested, we ran through production run to produce 100 of each of our parts.

An assembly session took place whereby 60 yo-yos were snap-fitted together (the center piece was held in place by an interference fit) and production tolerances were analyzed.

Note: The goal of this course, 2.008 was the integration of design, engineering, and management disciplines and practices for analysis and design of manufacturing enterprises. Emphasis is on the physics and stochastic nature of manufacturing processes and systems, and their effects on quality, rate, cost, and flexibility. Topics include process physics and control, design for manufacturing, and manufacturing systems. Group project requires design and fabrication of parts using mass-production and assembly methods to produce a part in quantity.