Looking for a use for all your old vinyl singles, albums and 12 inch picture discs? Then look no further.

In the Funky Frisbee gift pack, you'll find two different objects: a frisbee-sized lump of metal with a central spindle, and a weird curved arm thing with a streamer on the end of it (more on which later).

The first step is to gently heat the metal lump on your hob. Then cover it with a layer of oil (to prevent vinyl stickage, naturally), and place your favourite vinyl records on the central spindle one by one until they slowly melt into the desired Frisbee shape.

Then it's off to your local park with your newly-melted records (do remember to keep your favourite tracks uppermost during the melting process, by the way) and the weird arm thing I mentioned earlier.

Here's where a picture would be worth a thousand words. The arm-thing (which obviously needs a better name) is going to be hard to describe in words. If I can be arsed making a sketch and posting it somewhere online I'll be sure to include a link, but, being realistic about my arsed- ness capabilities, don't hold your breath for that.

Instead, imagine a kind of U-shaped thing, but turned on its side. The shape of this U follows the shape of the cross sectional profile of the Frisbee records, but only from the centre of the record to the circumference. To clarify this a bit, the ends of the arms of the U-shape both have round holes through which a spindle placed (which also goes through the spindle hole on the record) to clamp it in place.

The streamer thing is attached to the bottom part of the U (before it was tipped on its side). The effect of all this tortuous description is that, when thrown, the record can spin freely in flight while the streamer keeps the arm-thing always perpendicular to the direction of forward travel of the record. Apologies to mud for all that being slightly less clear than it.

Now here's the complicated bit (please don't run away). The topmost arm of the U-shaped thing has a small stylus on it which is free to travel up and down the arm. And that's the nub of the idea - as the disc is thrown, the stylus travels up the arm and effectively plays the record as it flies through the air.

Either a speaker built into the arm thing broadcasts the record as it flies, or the throwers wear Bluetooth receivers and headphones that mean they can hear the track as it spins through the air. Funky Frisbee devotees will soon learn the exact amount of wrist-flick needed to impart a 45 rpm spin to a disc, or a 33 1/3 rpm for long distance album throwing. Challengingly, older players will need an impressive degree of wrist strength to master the 78 rpm throw to bring their old tracks soaring back to life.

Believe it or not, I actually got to this point in writing this idea before I remembered that records play from the outside in, which means that centrifugal force pretty much kills this idea before it even reaches the launching pad.

I know it's an idea that - as stated - would never work in the real world, but I liked the idea of golden oldies spinning through the air too much to ditch it in favour of a more practical, specially manufactured implementation which might have been a bit more realistic.

Any suggestions for suitable tracks to incorporate would be much appreciated. You Spin Me Right Round, perhaps?
-- lostdog, Feb 09 2011

// records play from the outside in//

Not a problem. If you throw the record at the right speed and in the right direction, you (or someone) will hear it in the right order.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 09 2011


Just incorporate more tech. Run the needle from the inside out, buffer the sound, and use software that backwards masks the whole thing through your blew tooth. Throw them off of high places so there's enough time to play the whole side.

Look out below.
-- normzone, Feb 09 2011


Couldn't you just remove the screen from a Windows laptop, set it playing something, then frisb it?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 09 2011


//The topmost arm of the U-shaped thing has a small stylus on it// You buried the lede, which, ordinarily is a bad thing. However waiting until paragraph 8 for enlightenment produced a sort of shaggy-dog effect which I rather enjoyed. [+]
-- mouseposture, Feb 10 2011


//centrifugal force// That shouldn't be a problem. The U/stylus/ribbon combo is not spinning.
-- spidermother, Feb 10 2011


If you were to melt the vinyl, it probably won't retain much of the song track, would it?
-- RayfordSteele, Feb 10 2011


By extending the top section of the U-shaped thing that the streamer keeps straight, you'd be able to run the stylus from the outer edge inwards using a bit of wind resistance.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Feb 10 2011


If you put on a nice flat fin instead of a streamer, you could use the fin as a speaker surface.

Years ago I played with a cardboard record player. It had a needle that clamped to the edge of a sheet of cardboard, which was all there was to the sound system. It was turned by putting a pencil point into a hole drilled into the record label area--it only was good for spoken-word records, as music sounded shite. (The spoken-word records were sermons, and mostly sounded shite, too, but for different reasons.)
-- baconbrain, Feb 10 2011


(((+))) even if it wouldn't work, it's a very cool idea!
-- xandram, Feb 10 2011



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