Injection Molding with All the Colors of the Wind

It's been a long week, with most of it spent in the lab and machine shop as we rushed to get all of the parts produced. The hard work of the team has paid off, and we will be on track for the production and assembly of all 50 yo-yos.

The most amusing experience during this production week has been trying to get the perfect, colored yo-yo body. We wanted the color to be a solid, red color that required us to go through several iterations of mixing colors. When were able to get the desired mixture, we discovered that the production of these body parts actually yielded a color gradient across the large number of bodies being produced.

A small sample showing the gradient of yo-yo body colors.

Fortunately, we were eventually able to develop a method of distributing and mixing the color pellets, so that the variation in body colors were minimized. Despite our attempts purge the machine before production and our control of the color mixture, the color was still extremely susceptible to the colors that were already in the machine. As a result, there will be several, "limited edition," darker-colored Mark V Arc Reactor Yo-Yos.