• Project
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Project Description

I would like to build off of work that we have done with rigidbodies and springy structures to create an accurate simulation of the flight of a flying disc, more commonly reffered to as a Frisbee. As a member of Clemson's Men's Ultimate Frisbee team for the past four years, I have spent a lot of time getting a feel for how a Frisbee flies, and I would like to see if I can recreate that phenomenon in a physically-based animation project.

This project will require research into how a spinning disc generates lift and how air resistance causes the disc to turn in the air. The user would have control over the initial orientation of the disc, the initial velocity the disc is given, and the amount of spin put on the disc. This way, the user could try to practice manipulating the flight pattern of the disc based off of those three initial elements. These are all things that I have to consider in real life when playing the sport, so I am interested to see if I can recreate these factors and generate semi-realistic simulations of how a disc actually flies.

Difficulties that I foresee encountering include finding a 3d model of a flying disc that closely resembles some of the actual discs on the market. It is possible that a lot of the models out there look the part, but may not actually be shaped in a way to generate the necessary lift forces needed to make the disc fly. I plan on doing research into how a flying disc generates these lift forces and trying to find the best model that could work. I have included some of the research that I will be looking into in the "Research" tab above