The First Beacon Prototype

Hi there! I'm Kevin, the founder of Beacon. I wanted to share a bit about what started Beacon and rep some of my local courses along the way.

After I lost my second Shyrke in as many rounds at Shady Oaks in Streamwood IL, I thought there must be a simple way to get a beeper or something similar to the underside of my disc. I just wanted something simple that could guide me to the general area of my disc (those high reeds were still in my head), lightweight, and great battery life.

That brought me to Amazon. Surprisingly, they had everything I needed for the first prototype. Bare boards, wires, components, and a simple 555 timer to try out the idea. Once the unit started working, I wanted to protect it. This was very fragile, throwing a disc would have broken the unit just on landing. 

Back to Amazon! I bought some epoxy and ice cube trays that fit the unit (it was only about 30mm x 30mm). Round 1 didn't go so well. I forgot to mask the switch. The epoxy worked great, but I couldn't turn the unit on! I cut into the epoxy to reach the switch and pulled the wires out. Round 2 of epoxy with the switch wires off the unit. After it cured, I added the switch back on. This one worked great...it was time to head to the course with the unit, and some 3M tape.

So I met a friend at Black Bear Disc Golf in Hoffman Estates. This is a fantastic course, heavily wooded, reeds, and most holes are 300 feet or less. It is all about precise shots that you need to make, or you are going to have a tough time. Really makes for a fun round, but as my friend Morgan says "Black Bear has teeth in June". This was the perfect course to try the concept. 

I get to hole 3, the first one without water. I have the unit attached with some picture mounting 3M tape on a Leopard. It was time to see if the idea worked. I chucked that Leopard straight into the bushes (it was long gone), and without this tracker the search would have been rough. We start walking to our discs...and we hear the "beep beep" halfway there. I immediately felt a rush. Not that the unit still worked (I was pretty happy it did), but that I knew my disc was not going to be tough to find. Right then, I knew this was solving a real problem we all face in disc golf. That feeling of relief, when I heard my disc but couldn't see it, was really amazing.

We both kept using that prototype on every hole. We were just aiming for the reeds and bushes, and it kept on working... until I hit the first tree and it popped off my disc. The first prototype lasted only 9 holes at Black Bear, but now I needed to improve on it. This unit was heavy, oblong-shaped, weak adhesive, and tall. 

I headed back home, confident this tracker could be improved, and I started buying more components for round 2.