A contemplation regarding yoyo materials and design and objective analysis on its performance

[IoSonoFormaggio (JooNotJew)]

I’ve been wondering about yoyo design and been going through reviews on youtube and reddit as well as the forums.

In all honesty, I feel like a lot of yoyo reviews are kind of uninformative these days. Most of the reviews are like “this yoyo spins for a long time and is stable” with some subjective evaluation on “floatiness” which I found somewhat unreliable as an indicator.

I wonder what the consensus is on the objective evaluation of a yoyo’s performance by using its total weight, weight distribution and using that information to calculate the torque of the yoyo to figure out how much spin power it has.

It’s obvious that more rim weight = more power and spin time since torque is calculated by F (force) x r (displacement from the axis) and the more weight there is on the rims means that more force is being applied far from the centre, which results in more torque.

So assuming 2 yoyos are spinning at the same rpm, we can theoretically calculate the total torque of the yoyo at said rpm, and including the total mass of the yoyo itself, we should be able to compare the spin time and acceleration of two different yoyos reliably.

Logically speaking, if two yoyos with different designs resulted in the same net torque, it should play identical wouldn’t it? I wonder if yoyo designers who toyed with several prototypes of various weight distributions can possibly chime in on this.

Given that, I feel like a lot of yoyos would honestly feel virtually identical to each other, given that there are so many overlapping design elements in certain yoyos.

Given that, is there really an advantage to using bimetal design over monometal? As we can see, there are a lot of yoyos that have 2 versions of itself in which one case is bimetal and the other monometal. Let’s compare the yoyofriends hummingbird and sunbird for example.

They use the same shape, and the same aluminium alloy. Since the hummingbird is bimetal and sunbird monometal, the rim of the sunbird is thicker than the hummingbird and also has a bit more overall weight to make up for the lost rim weight.

Given the slightly different weight distribution and overall weight, they will play slightly different from each other. However let’s say that the sunbird stayed at the same overall weight as the hummingbird, but instead just simply had the rims slightly more extended than the hummingbird and the rims thickened so that the overall torque is the same as the hummingbird without having to increase the total weight. Would they play different? If two yoyos have the same torque and same mass, and virtually identical shapes, I would think that they would play virtually identical to each other.

I wonder what yoyo designers think of this. I feel like yoyo design has come far to the point that we are bordering on the limits of the materials being used (thin as possible walls to add leeway for more rim weight or centreweight). At this point I feel like we can pretty much emulate any yoyo we want as long as we know the weight distribution, regardless of whether it’s bimetal or not.

Recently I’ve been feeling that yoyo design is becoming kinda stale. I feel like it’s a bit polarized with designs either focused overly on the competition aspect while others focusing entirely on the organic aspect, but without that much thought on weight distribution. Of course there are some outliers catering to some more specific tastes but it feels like yoyos are either focusing overly on the rim weighted competition w or v shape, or organics that honestly look and feel virtually the same to each other.

Why can’t organics have a lot of rim weight like the competition models and why can’t sharp v-shaped yoyos be floaty and comfortable to play with? I feel like there can be rim weighted competition oriented yoyos with comfortable organic shapes while having sharp slick looking yoyos that play chill and floaty like the modern organics are marketing themselves as.

What do you guys think? I feel like overall feel of yoyos have some sort of unspoken association with how they play, and as a result a lot of modern yoyo models seem to be near negligible design variations of each other.

[hobby_master (Atom)]

I totally agree about most reviewers. super underwhelming on real info. but that brings up a mess of factors. most reviewers receive the product for free or discounted in some way. if those channels want to continue getting free yoyos they aren’t gonna blast products with negative feedback. manufacturers would be less likely to send stuff in the future. also most if not all yoyos nowadays are decent enough in some way.
I do think reviewers should be more critical on certain aspects of the yoyo. and most of the time its really hard to get a sense of a yoyo just by playing it for a little bit. it can take many sessions to really get a feel for a yoyo, and also potentially show its weakness or strength.

as for the rest, you are trying to put numbers where numbers don’t really belong imo. its easy to compare numbers or shapes, but the truth is, even a little change can totally affect how the yoyo feels on the string.

all of this brings up a lot to talk about, I believe these are more complicated and this is just scratching the surface (or ano if you will)…

[Glenacius_K (Spinworthy Glen)]

@IoSonoFormaggio

In all honesty, I feel like a lot of yoyo reviews are kind of uninformative these days.

Correct.

@IoSonoFormaggio

I wonder what the consensus is on the objective evaluation of a yoyo’s performance by using its total weight, weight distribution and using that information to calculate the torque of the yoyo to figure out how much spin power it has.

You’re suggesting here that spin power is the determining factor of a yoyos performance. There’s much more to it than that.

@IoSonoFormaggio

It’s obvious that more rim weight = more power and spin time since torque is calculated by F (force) x r (displacement from the axis) and the more weight there is on the rims means that more force is being applied far from the centre, which results in more torque.

That’s a bit simplistic. There’s more to it than this. The diameter/bearing size ratio has a huge effect on torque too (among other factors)

@IoSonoFormaggio

Logically speaking, if two yoyos with different designs resulted in the same net torque, it should play identical wouldn’t it?

I wonder if yoyo designers who toyed with several prototypes of various weight distributions can possibly chime in on this.

No.

Onedrop have done this with their benchmark series.

@IoSonoFormaggio

If two yoyos have the same torque and same mass, and virtually identical shapes, I would think that they would play virtually identical to each other.

No, that’s not necessarily the case.

@IoSonoFormaggio

Recently I’ve been feeling that yoyo design is becoming kinda stale. I feel like it’s a bit polarized with designs either focused overly on the competition aspect while others focusing entirely on the organic aspect, but without that much thought on weight distribution.

There is a far greater variety in yoyo design and experimentation now than has ever been.

Every single yoyo design whether perceived as desirable or not has its performance benefits. It just depends what you are after. Every yoyo designer in existence cares about weight distribution and makes deliberate choices regarding it.

@IoSonoFormaggio

Why can’t organics have a lot of rim weight like the competition models and why can’t sharp v-shaped yoyos be floaty and comfortable to play with?

They can and they can. They just need to be designed appropriately for these characteristics.

@IoSonoFormaggio

I feel like there can be rim weighted competition oriented yoyos with comfortable organic shapes while having sharp slick looking yoyos that play chill and floaty like the modern organics are marketing themselves as.

There are more of these types of yoyos in existence than ever.

@IoSonoFormaggio

I feel like overall feel of yoyos have some sort of unspoken association with how they play, and as a result a lot of modern yoyo models seem to be near negligible design variations of each other.

A lot look similar and may play similar but there is a huge abundance of different designs out there today.

[TheHelveticaScenario]

@IoSonoFormaggio

I feel like a lot of yoyos would honestly feel virtually identical to each other, given that there are so many overlapping design elements in certain yoyos.

How a yoyo “plays” or “feels” is not an objective metric or standard which can be easily communicated without resorting to amorphous language like “fast”, “nimble”, “floaty”, etc; it can only really be determined individually based on a player’s perception, biases, and preferences and that kind of makes it no more informative than calculating the newton-meters of torque because it doesn’t fully answer the underlying question: will I like this yoyo?

Judging by releases, people don’t want much innovation. Nor do they really care about objective analysis judging by reviews. Which is why it seems nearly all reviews meander into being vapid, uninformative, rambling, copy-pasta of every other review. The desirable and proven characteristics of yoyos (weight, width, diameter, material) have become so honed – and consequently restrictive – at this point, there’s very little room to deviate from the well known design patterns and thus little to distinguish one yoyo from the next beyond aesthetics. Nothing wrong with that.

But with what little room there is left for designers to tinker with design, people then want to grossly over exaggerate how much impact minor changes can realistically have on playability and the slightest deviation gives others just enough hesitation that they keep gravitating to the same old shapes and design patterns over and over – but with different splashes!

My very unpopular opinion is that yoyos produced today are in fact mostly the same – minus the aesthetic, “lifestyle” differences – and thus mostly “feel” the same. Yet, too many seem to be in denial about this and want to rant and prattle on and on about how a 1 gram weight increase/reduction would completely change the characteristics of the yoyo. That’s just idle speculation based on what you’re used to, that’s not science.

The real elephant in the room is that in reality, your talent and technique will be vastly more important than the specs of a modern yoyo when it comes to how successfully you can pull off any particular trick.

[IoSonoFormaggio (JooNotJew)]

Thanks for the breakdown! It was really helpful. Now I’m more excited to try and prototype my own yoyo designs and study how different design aspects change the feel of the yoyo. I feel like it would be interesting to compare ever so slightly different yoyo designs to make the comparisons more clear.

[POspot (Michael di Gregorio)]

In my humble opinion, if you want a good review that hits all your points of contention with other reviews. Buy a throw you like and review it your way and post it. I would appreciate I agree a tech review with explanation of what that mean to performance is needed. Big but on the current reviews.
The amount of different variables that go into how a throw feels to one person to another is far too vast, to accurate in a description for everyone. This is the aspect of the Yo-Yo community that I feel really makes the buy sell trade part of the community vibrant. What makes one throw feels like the best throw ever in the hand to one person and to another it may feel like bolt tied to the end of the string.
I really like the idea of a review that is purely technical rpm’s etc. I appreciate all of those who try and review something that is so personal to a thrower, every review I have seen, the reviewer is struggling to be fair to all parties involved at least the ones on this forum. I personally enjoy the reviews that pass the throw around then, raffle it off to a Superfan. Hey I really like this conversation I have been thinking of some type of review system my self. I would most likely do a combination of tech, feel and art in that order. I will start with reviewing my own collection to work out the bugs. Good luck everyone. This got really deep I apologize for being so long winded.

[jjdddn1]

@IoSonoFormaggio

In all honesty, I feel like a lot of yoyo reviews are kind of uninformative these days. Most of the reviews are like “this yoyo spins for a long time and is stable” with some subjective evaluation on “floatiness” which I found somewhat unreliable as an indicator.

Totally agree and I gotta quote this phrase here: “Without the freedom to criticise, there is no true praise”
When watching a review, I tend to trust the reviewer’s emotion more than their words. You could tell from their tone when they come across a throw they REALLY REALLY like.