2.008 DESIGN AND MANUFACTURING II
In Fall 2012 I took 2.008: Design and Manufacturing II. This course introduced me to a variety of common manufacturing processes found in different industries. The course also had a practical component where students worked in teams to design yo-yos and manufacture them in bulk using a plastic injection molding machine. My team designed an octopus-themed yo-yo.
Yo-Yo Design
We worked together to design the octopus yo-yo. My team split into pairs which were responsible for different sub-assemblies. I worked on the team responsible for the yo-yo body and the thermo-formed plastic bubble face. We designed the parts in Solidworks and calculated their moments of inertia. We then designed the molds for the parts in MasterCAM; this process taught us the basics of designing the core and cavity sides of a mold, and including ejector pins and other features. In our reports we were required to submit our Solidworks models and the G-code files generated by MasterCAM. We also had to interpret 10 lines of G-code to show that we understood how to read G-code. You can read my team's first report here.
Manufacturing the Parts
Once we finished designing the yo-yo parts and their accompanying molds, we made the molds using CNC mills. We then tested the molds by making test parts with our injection molding machine. Once we were happy with the performance of each set of molds, we did a full production run of over 100 yo-yos. During the production run, we monitored key dimensions of each part and recorded them on Shewhart charts. Our final results are recorded in my team's final report here.
This is the final yo-yo design. This project was the first one where I learned to put my teammates' names on our parts - it is a great way of showing that you personally designed and fabricated the assembly.
Here we are using the lathe to do the initial roughing passes on the mold for our thermo-formed plastic face.
Ready for business!
This is the final yo-yo design. This project was the first one where I learned to put my teammates' names on our parts - it is a great way of showing that you personally designed and fabricated the assembly.