Mr.Potatohead YoYo
Design and Manufacturing II 2.008 Final Project
“Mr. PotatoHead YoYo”
Fall 2001: Professor Sanjay Sarma
Students follow a typical product design/manufacturing sequence
in the final lab where groups of four to six design, mill, mold, and assemble 100 yoyos.
After seeing previous years’ examples, I wanted a design that would challenge
my group and challenge the staff that helped us in the lab. Our group of four had
decided that we wanted the yoyo to have another purpose, to function as two toys. I
thought that the common Mr. PotatoHead toy was well recognized and that we could
design a separate mold for the interchanging parts (hat, nose, shoes). I was in charge
of the Solidworks design and also made the thermoform mold and helped with the outer
shell mold. The milling design was difficult and using MasterCam, I milled a potatoshaped
dome out of a 3 in. square aluminum block. Because of the black injectionmolded
piece that would protrude through the white thermoformed eyes, I had to
individually drill out each eyehole. We calculated the correct center of mass, and
assembled via snap-fitting; the yoyo works wonderfully!
