The time has come. Team Tropical Escape has finished assembling their yo-yos and are ready to go on a tropical escape with all of that Bitcoin money. But, before reviewing the final product, below we'll discuss a couple of the pieces.
Snap ring- The snap ring fabrication was completed between last Friday, Dec. 7th and this Monday Dec. 10th. We did not encounter any of the difficulties with burning that had been occurring earlier the week before. To complete the fabrication as quick as possible, we utilized three shoulder bolts acting as shafts to allow us to place the bolt inside the snap ring.
Stockline line overmold- This piece was completed last Friday, Dec. 7th, and has a sleek, elegant look. While fabricating, we were tinkering with he shot size and pressure profile because short shots were occurring. However, we noticed that the orientation in which we placed the stock line into the overmolding core affected how the filling occurred. We experienced flashing and short shots because of this. Given that the stock line is not an even design, this can explain the discrepancies. Furthermore, we still continued experiencing flashing along the outer diameter of the are where this piece snaps in to the snap ring. This then would not allow the pieces to snap.
We believe the flashing is primarily due to the core of the overmold being to deep or too wide. Yet, due to time constrains, we could not fix the issue. But, we solved it by using an exact knife to cut off the excess plastic, and this worked well.
'B' overmold- 'B' overmoding was completed on Monday, Dec. 7th and also provides a sleek second half to the housing. With this piece, we were encountering dishing, but adjusting the pressure profile and packing time allowed us to improve this aspect. Though sleek, this part has the defect of a scratch present in the biggest outer diameter of the part. It is due to a scratch that was present in the cavity, but that we had not noticed and then had no time to fix. Below is an image.
Now, finally, images of the yo-yo in separate pieces and the assembled yo-yos can be seen below.
Watch our amazing Team Tropical Escape video here!
Our final report can be found here.
We would like to thank the 2.008 staff, Prof. Hart and Dr. Wendell, as well as the TAs and the shop staff for helping guide us in this journey. We learned a great deal and have a fun yo-yo to show for it.
Team Tropical Escape!