How To Throw The Frisbees

Physics research question

How the angle at which you throw the Frisbee affects its height and distance?

Index

• What is a Frisbee? (Its shape, structure, material, weight and other specifications)

• Various forces helping the Frisbee in its flight.

• The Bernoulli Principle and Newton's Third Law.

• The aerodynamic forces acting on the disk.

• Gyroscopic stability responsible for the spinning of the Frisbee.

• An experiment to show how the angle at which we throw the Frisbee affects its flight and distance.

• How to throw a Frisbee?

My engagement in the topic:

These holidays I was in Australia just sitting on the beach, watching some kids play with the Frisbee in the distance. After some time, the Frisbee suddenly came and landed near my

I will be throwing the Frisbee so that it is directed down this center line.

• Throw the Frisbee as flat and horizontal as I can, aiming it down the center line I made, and have a helper to confirm the angle at which I throw the Frisbee. Throw the Frisbee as flat and horizontal as I can at least four more times. Each time I will try to throw the Frisbee with similar arm motion and speed, use a similar spin, and have the same release point.

• Throw the Frisbee tilted up a little, at a roughly 45-degree angle above the previous, flat throw. Throw it this way at least five times. Other than changing the launch angle, I will try to keep all other aspects of the flights the same.

• Throw the Frisbee tilted down a little, aiming at an angle about 45 degrees below a flat throw at least five times. Again, I’ll try to keep all other aspects of each flight the same.

Record:

1) The launch

distance for a Frisbee with initial velocity 14 m/s and angle of attack that is relatively 0 degrees

When the Frisbee is thrown relatively horizontal, it has a good amount of lift and consequently should fly relatively far. This shortness of distance can be explained by the Bernoulli's Principle of pressure. Due to the angle of attack that the Frisbee was thrown at, the levelness of the disc did not cause a major pressure change and so there was not enough LIFT enforced on the Frisbee.

Trial 2: Frisbee thrown at angle 45 degrees

Plot of height vs. distance for a Frisbee with initial velocity of 14 m/s and angle of attack greater than 45 degrees

When an even larger launch angle is used, the Frisbee has more lift. You may have noticed, however, that although the Frisbee thrown upward flew relatively high, it probably stalled out rather abruptly near the end of its flight. This may have caused it to land gently and/or quickly go off to the side. In this trial, the Frisbee took the principle displayed in Trial 2 to the extreme by increasing the angle of attack dramatically, this forces a lift force that is too strong and causes the Frisbee to lose control and lose it's pressure difference that was enabling it to fly far. Thus the Frisbee