One of my most cherished possessions is my collection of “Yo-Yo Physics: An Engineer’s Notebook” books by Don “Captain Yo” Watson. Don is often cited as the creator of the modern yo-yo. His rim-weighted design changed the game with the Silver Bullet, then again with the Silver Bullet 2 when he created one of the first ball-bearing yo-yos.
Don is a charming fellow, often seen wearing a bolo tie and cowboy hat. I seem to remember Don having a curly handle bar mustache when I met him at the 2000 National Yo-Yo Contest, but my mind could be playing tricks on me.
Don was a retired engineer before he got into yo-yoing, but it’s clear that he never fully retired. He applied his love of math and physics to yo-yos to create radical new yo-yo designs along with Dr. Tom Kuhn, founder of Tom Kuhn Yo-Yos. Later, he started documenting what he learned in a series of engineer’s notebooks called Yo-Yo Physics. Each of these handwritten notebooks covered a different yo-yo topic, like the Radius of Gyration or Yo-Yo RPM, and explained them using complicated diagrams and mathematical formulations.
The hand-drawn art and fun details really clicked with me because I had been making and collecting zines for many years. So these yo-yo books fit nicely with the punk rock, cooking, DIY, and personal story zines in my collection.
Don isn’t selling these books anymore, but you can download pdfs of the series here (or here). You can also read this Make article about Don here.
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