Flying disc noise as an introduction to acoustic signal processing

Flying disc sports such as ultimate frisbee and disc golf continue to grow in popularity around the world. Despite the ubiquity of the flying disc in leisure and sport, descriptions of disc flight are largely heuristic and anecdotal, with minimal quantitative investigation into in-flight behavior. This work has two primary goals. First, by throwing a variety of discs over an array of microphones, we will assess how in-flight properties of the disc impact the recorded acoustic signals. Remote acoustic sensing offers several advantages over previous flying disc experiments: No instrumentation is placed on the disc and the disc can be observed over a longer flight than is possible with most visual measurement techniques. Second, we intend to create a low-cost, easy-to-implement experiment that introduces students to acoustic signal processing topics related to rotating machinery and array theory. Frisbees are cheap, readily available, and familiar to many students, making the flying disc a fun and accessible sound source that students can engage with from data collection to data analysis. This presentation will discuss the experimental setup, provide initial results, and offer lessons learned for educators and disc sport enthusiasts attempting similar projects.