Hooray! We've arrived at our current "Test-Type" design.
Initially, my goal for the company was to have a soft launch in 2022. Unfortunately, due to my own ineptitude at the time, I went into a frenzy overdesigning an idea that hit me which was the 2nd prototype, it worked out though because I learned a lot through it. I came back to earth and started work on this design shortly after.
Last year in 2022 I spent a lot of time buying, trading, and selling yoyos. Some of it was for my own "personal" gain as they were yo-yo's I wanted, but it was justified by saying they had research value for me. Through this I learned a lot about yoyo design after paying closer attention, studying, and researching than previous years.
The goal for me through out this process has been to learn to understand what weight distribution felt like when altered within the design. Understanding how a yoyo will play or feel like while i'm designing it in CAD is a very important resource for me, as prototyping does not come cheap. There's no other way to truly understand how the yoyo will play until you get it in your hands and play it. However I'm getting closer to being able to judge what a yo-yo will play like given the design I'm looking at in CAD. The biggest issue for me is working with 7068 as my primary choice of AL stock.
It's a superior AL than 6061 or 7075, which is only marginally better than 6061. 7068 has more density paired with it's durability. This allows you to push walls thinner, but also gives you more density to work with. Understanding how 7068 plays, and my changes affect the play was important for me to learn in my first two designs. I felt without knowing how 7068 acted in play, I couldn't sell my yoyos.
My first two yoyos were prototyped and bought on my own without any intent to sell the yoyo. To me, I was not going to sell something that I've never made before, so I needed to actually prototype and learn about weight distribution. I also needed something concrete to send One Drop to prove to them I wasn't just a dreamer, I was putting action towards my dreams. The first two prototypes really helped me understand yoyo design. I think my First prototype is actually something that could've been sold, but it was overly stable and didn't have the best feeling in play (even though my biased side likes the first proto a lot.) Arguably, my second one is more fun, in a different way.
In researching overall design, I learned that product designers usually design for the extremes, then taper them down into balancing those two extremes to a middle ground. For instance, if they were to design a pair of scissors, they would take the extremes of the smallest and largest hand that would use that object, then find the middle ground so it became a more balanced product that's more widely accessible to everyone. There's plenty of other design ideas, concepts, and design language that went into my overall research, but this concept really stuck with me.
My first prototype pushed my personal limit on size, 60mm, and had more weight to it, around 64g. I had initially wanted caps, but I didn't have enough knowledge to apply that to my design yet.
After that, I went to the opposite end, something super light, 57g, modular, and a smaller diameter at 57mm.
These two designs are an extreme of what I was searching for. Which is what this current design is, an evolution of both previous prototype designs sort of morphed and balanced into one.
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In launching my brand, I wanted to make sure I was selling a product I was proud of. Something that's held me back in the past from selling my art is a simple moral concept of mine. If it's not something I would buy, I won't sell it.
I wasn't confident in the first two prototypes because I was literally shooting blind in the dark with both designs. I had no idea they would actually play as good as they did for my first two attempts, and the second one being quite complex.
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After playtesting my prototypes I felt I needed some feedback, I thought that my own personal opinion may be too biased.
I took it to DXL last year for my first meet and am very thankful for all of the friends I've gained from attending. I was hesitant to attend at first because I'm such a homebody, but it's one of my favorite places to be. I couldn't imagine being where I'm at, the confidence I have, the support I've been given, and so much more without DXL. Thank you to everyone, and anyone who's attended DXL that's given me any sort of support, even simply playing my prototype. I appreciate it greatly!
After that, I realized that my yo-yos were not just my own bias. The yo-yos were well received by many, if not all, and most agreed that the second prototype felt better than the first. I think what struck out to me the most was watching people play my yo-yo, see their smile crack after throwing it around and then hear the feedback on it. I felt like the smile that emerged from their faces while playing was all the proof I needed to feel confident that I am ready to sell my designs. This also gave me a lot of confidence on my ability to feel a yo-yo really well. I think that I have a good grasp on what feels good, and what makes a yoyo feel good in play paired with performance. The issue now is learning how to design those yo-yos.
The first prototype was ever so slightly too heavy toward the center of the yoyo due to the step in the hub. I personally like this one a lot because it's so stable, but the "feel" of the yoyo isn't correct. Which led me to my 2nd prototype. I nailed a really good feeling yoyo, and it had enough juice to handle most combos even though it was a 57mm mono metal organic. The issue was, the best configuration was with the rubber weight rings installed which sent it to 60g.
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So I hit the drawing board after getting feedback from a lot of people. I started to study my favorite yoyos I was trying to replicate the feel of. Trying to understand what made them feel good in play. It wasn't just the feel in the hand, it wasn't just the performance, it's something else there.
I had to remove the weight ring because it caused the design to be a little overly complex with my current resources. I need a tool that can push the caps out of the yoyo once they're press fit in, and also prototype for different size weight rings. The design is really more complex than I'm currently ready to tackle, so it's on hold for a later date.
After removing the weight rings, I decided to fill out my yoyo closer to a weight distribution that mimicked a lot of my favorite throws. Something I came to realize was that an undercut or IRG was present on many of the Yo-Yos I personally enjoy playing, along with many others. Peak, Anti-Yo Organics, ILLY Organics, MMC, Parlay/Sudo, Canvas/Diptych.. Metal Zero (ok the last one is just me.)
I started to analyze throws with this undercut. Trying to understand how deep the undercut went, how thin their walls went in relation to the undercut. How big of a rim thickness in relation to it's overall radius. This took me weeks, if not months and is probably the hardest part to get right.
I decided to continue on this route and started to design my yoyo.
The first issues I fell into was deciding on a rim design. I was stuck between a flat face or something more curved. I needed a way to balance the look and aesthetic while maintaining a really soft shape that was comfy on the catch.
Something important to my design was making sure I balanced hard and soft lines, sharp edges, and round curves. Due to the yoyo probably being played without caps most of the time, it was important that it aesthetically looked good without caps installed but maintained the ledge to hold the caps in place. This is why I was opting for a flatter overall design, but I wanted it to be really soft and comfy on the catch / rims.
In the end, I decided on this rim design that implemented a round edge that was broken up into a straight wall to cut toward the edge that holds the caps.
This way the design has hard edges and soft edges mixed evenly through out the yoyo so that nothing is out of place which also helps different side effects to look good with the design. Soft domes, Sharp spikes, it all looks good on my design. This actually took a lot of time and effort to finalize. I'm very conscious of my design language, and always want my throws to look aesthetically pleasing to the eye.
Humans are attracted to objects on a subconscious level, understanding those reasons was a lot of the research I spent. This isn't just simply about yo-yo's, I'm putting my effort into everything that involves creating a brand.
Next up was worrying a little bit about durability. I smacked around my 2nd prototype a lot by throwing it really high in the air and letting it land a bunch of times, then throwing breakaways straight into the asphalt to test it's durability.
Afterwards, there was a small amount of nail vibe i couldn't quite tune out, it was nothing major as the yoyo still plays fine. I'm sure most people wouldn't damage the yoyo as much as I did. I still wanted to test different wall thickness and how it affected the yoyo.
I decided to up the wall thickness slightly in these two designs to test the durability again. I feel I can go thinner, but I don't want to risk a user having a yoyo that literally breaks or warps on them because I'm pushing the walls too thin. I also need to be conscious of the manufacturer, just because you CAN go that thin, doesn't always mean you should. So, both designs are giving me the ability to test different wall thickness, feel, play, and durability.
After testing I'll determine my minimum wall thickness I want to go then continue to design based on these tolerances I'm testing.
Next up on the list was tapped axles versus side effect yoyos and the length of the axle. One Drop often speaks about a 16mm axle being the minimum thread engagement, but they also state it doesn't specify the application. Not just that, but there's a lot of yoyo's with larger axles that seem to be a favorite of players. Even the St. Elmo uses a rather large axle in it's design. Is it 100% for durability? Or is there a reason? Like the GTR-JS somehow feeling better and more refined over the GTR with a larger axle. Does more center weight, or a balanced amount of center weight make for a better feeling yoyo?
I also won't deny, part of it is a homage to Anti-Yo. Like many, I am inspired by Sonny and Kiya, their designs have withstood the test of time and I truly think even the proto YWET is a masterpiece in itself. This is sort of a homage to that, I don't think I've made a masterpiece like the proto YWET, but I hope I've made something special people can enjoy for a long time to come.
Next, I needed to decide on how big I wanted my response bump. My goal is to find the minimum response bump I can get away with without it going too large. I'm put off by designs with overly large response bumps on throws meant to be organic because it ruins the aesthetic of it in my eyes. Conversely, I feel that a completely flat wall like a YWET is simply designing something that's inferior to emulate something harder to play with, which I feel like we're far past in terms of modern yo-yo design. I don't want to intentionally make a worse playing yo-yo just to give it "soul" or make it harder to play.
After my first and second prototype, I was convinced that my yoyo must have a response bump in it, the only question is, how big? I went a little bit smaller than my 2nd proto on this one to push the limits on how small of a response bump is enough to make you feel comfortable and confident in hitting your tricks.
Then the design came down to response size. I kept wanting to do CLYW and chickened out every time in my first two prototypes. This time I had to test it.
Since I decided to make two separate designs, it was a perfect chance for me to test the response size of 19mm vs. 21mm. I had a feeling that a larger response diameter made yoyos feel better to play. Old duncans with response stickers, my Free-Rider with a large response pad, and other older yoyos with large response pads like ILYY seem to feel ever so slightly different on the breakaway release.
The only way for me to know for sure which response size I wanted to go with was to test both back to back with virtually identical yoyos.
I made two designs, very, very similar, but in order to test my own theories and ideas certain things were changed and modified in the design resulting in two different feeling yoyos.
I don't want you to buy the Tapped Axle version, then message me and say "Why didn't you tell me you were making an SE version!" This is the transparency you're given so that you can decide for yourself.
The Tapped Axle version is truly more of a rarity for me. It's a homage to Anti-Yo as it's my first prototype I'll be selling. I plan to make Side Effect yo-yo's primarily, not to say I'll never make tapped axles, but this design specifically is meant for Side Effects, and always was.
I want to launch my brand, but I don't want to wait for Side-Effects to be made and wanted to make sure I was given the blessing from One Drop to use their Side Effect system in my design. All of these reasons made it feel right to produce this small batch of Tapped Axle designs for my first release.
Any further revisions to this design will always be with Side Effects.
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