One Drop Design was started in 2001 by Shawn Nelson and David Metz as a contracting machine shop with the eventual goal of having their own product line. They knew that when you own a machine shop, you get ideas pitched to you all the time and you need to be ready to move when the right idea walks through the door. The right idea might not be obvious so they kept their eyes and minds open.
In 2002 they briefly considered making yoyos after David saw some of the early metal bearing yo-yos at a kite shop on the Oregon coast. Having been into yo-yos as a child, metal yoyos was an exciting prospect, but ultimately the idea was rejected because at that time One Drop Design only owned a CNC Mill which is not the ideal machine for making a yo-yo…
Full story here:
Edit: this just covers how/why they started making yoyos, not the actual meaning of the name. I will email them right now.
Yeah their name comes from the one drop drum beat. Here is a quote from David:
“A One Drop is a roots reggae drum beat. The beat is technically simple, but very difficult to play with the right feel. That emphasis on feel was the inspiration for us. We wanted to put the right feel into our business. We also love reggae and played in reggae bands in the past. The original/parent name of the company is One Drop Design. We also liked that the acronym is ODD.”
I would like to hear more about the mysterious student that approached OneDrop to make a yo-yo. Did he have a name? What happened to that partnership? Why is this initial inspiration and design contribution glossed-over? It appears that student played a big part in OneDrop becoming a yo-yo producer.
Mark Montgomery was previously sponsored by buzzon who created the dv8. It makes sense why he would like the throw but Colin was the original designer.
If I remember right the project was a dv8 copy without Dave’s (buzzon owner) approval. Then yoyofactory released the dv888 with Dave’s approval after their beef with onedrop.
I always find this funny because people say how great the project is but how terrible the dv888 is when they’re so close in shape.
I have never played a project. I didn’t have much yoyo funds at the time ot originally came out. I always thought the same thing about the similarities in the two. I was never a big fan of the dv888 but idont think it was as bad as everyone made it out to be either.
The original project design was a collaboration between Colin and I and we have the contract that we signed to prove it. His major contribution at that time was to inform us about the recent history and current state of the art (at that time) of modern yoyo. Because of my experience in aerospace machining where you never directly thread into aluminum, I insisted that we use a nut capture. When I proposed this idea Colin asked:'how do you drill a hexagonal hole?!". I will say though that the little rubber nubs were all him, and they really led to the Project’s iconic look. He also came up with the original name although it was meant to be:“Project, to cast forward, ie: to project a beam of light” The original nut capture went through several changes, and eventually evolved into SideEffects. We paid Colin to work at the shop before we paid ourselves and in the end I think we paid him just shy of $20k. We automatically extended our contractual agreement to include the M1 and the P2.
More disingenuous comments Matt? And at least spell the kid’s name right. And please, since you have some kind of conspiratorial inside information, let’s have it.
The reggae drum beat, One Drop, is where they got the name from. I just got an email from One Drop. Have fun throwing ya’ll! I didn’t think there would be an arguement about anything…
