The Rain City Skills “SETI” started life a year ago as a random design inspired by a yoyo Jensen Kimmet handed me to try at Worlds. I came home and messaged Justin to say “We need something with a really big diameter. He sent me a design and I threw it at a new shop to see if they were worth working with. They weren't, the YoYo came back with a bearing seat too narrow. We had an oversized, responsive slimline!
While I didn’t use that shop again, I did throw some old Yoyojam Shims in the prototype and try it out. I was stunned. I was expecting a half-decent, silly YoYo. What I got was a really, really good silly YoYo. It went on the list while we tried to work out a theme.
My first idea was to call it the cereal bowl. Theme it around Saturday morning cartoons. I’d get some custom packaging made in the fashion of old single-serve cereal boxes (the kind you could actually use as a bowl). Perhaps even include a compostable plastic spoon!
Unfortunately (or fortunately) I waited too long and another company released a YoYo called “The Bowl”. I sat on it for a bit. While waiting for just the right theme to appear I sent it off to another shop to test and it came back perfect.
At some point Waylon Crase and I were chatting and he suggested the name SETI, since the shape also resembled a satellite dish. It was perfect! I’d get some alien lego figures, and have some fun with the colourways!
I can’t recall when I had the idea for the engravings, but I suspect it came out of my frustration with anodizers. A far too large percentage of each run of yo-yos ended up b-grades because of anodizing flaws. Solid colours and engravings avoided that issue.
When it came time for packaging Waylon scored again with the ridiculous, almost origami boxes. They’ve been a pain to ship, and I can’t package up the run and shelve it because the boxes are too big! I instead have to assemble the package for each YoYo as it ships out. But they are really cool, so it’s’ 100% worth the extra time!
I’ll leave play and performance up to the reviewers, suffice to say it’s definitely not the YoYo you will win the world championship with. But it is one you’ll have a really good time playing with.
Specs:
Width: 40.5mm
Diameter: 67.8mm
Weight: 67.8g
Groove Concave Bearing
What's in the Box?
2x Rain City Skills Thin String
1x SETI sticker
1x Lego compatible Alien Figure
A grab bag of assorted lego pieces to customize your throw!
You can get yours exclusively at www.raincityskills.com, just follow the link below.
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