Fat Tire 20/20 from OneDrop Clear

A 20/20 Retrospective Edition is when we make a small change to a model using hindsight to make it better. In this case, it’s the Fat Tire 20/20.

Controversial statement: Scientifically, the Fat Tire 20/20 is more Floaty than the original.

Conventionally, yo-yo play descriptors have generally been considered to be largely subjective. However, we happen to have a collaborator that you may not have heard of. If you were on the One Drop Forums back in the day, you might have come across a user called “Dirty Birdy”. He is a long time friend and creative collaborator for One Drop and his name is Chris Greiner.  Chris is a PhD Physicist who has been doing on-going research into the physics of yo-yos. The standard physics of a yo-yo have long been understood but Chris has taken it further and examined play characteristics that have been described by players. He has delved into being able to figure out just from CAD, if a yo-yo design is going to be more or less prone to vibe - this has been hugely helpful to us. Everyone who appreciates One Drop should know that Chris plays a big role in our design work. We are so blessed to be able to collaborate with him.

In this case we are talking about Floaty, a descriptor that has been around a long time. It means something along the lines of “FEELS light in play”. The actual weight of the yo-yo doesn’t seem to be as much of a factor in this feeling. As a matter of fact, the Fat Tire 20/20 is actually about a gram heavier than the original. Weight distribution is the key here. Chris examined yo-yos which were universally considered to be Floaty and was able to figure out what they all had in common through deep physics. 

Chris proposed this re-work to the Fat Tire to specifically make it more Floaty. Most of the change is to the underside of the rim where you will see that it looks quite different. The profile shape is still the same.  The re-work stems entirely from physics analysis. Normally our designing is done with a combination of  intuition/experience, play testing, appearance and physics so this is different and very cool.

Getting this yo-yo out in the world is a continuation of the science where we now get to see just how subjective the feel of Floaty is.  We are looking forward to hearing what people think. We are, of course, aware that by pointing this out we are probably influencing the results but either way we thought this would be a lot of fun and the Fat Tire 20/20 is awesome.