One of the foundations of disc composition - no metal - will change effective November 17, 2014. The age of electronics in discs has arrived. The PDGA Board of Directors approved electronic components can be incorporated in production disc models as long as no metal is exposed. Here's the first modified spec with changes shown in bold:

(I) Discs (C) Guidelines for Discs Manufactured for PDGA Competition (2) be made of solid, non-magnetic plastic material, without any inflatable components. Electronic components may be embedded/inserted with none of its metal components externally exposed. (Not in effect until November 17, 2014)



For the other change, the existing spec already allows a thicker circular section to be incorporated under the flight plate. However, this spec had to be tweaked a bit to make sure the slope of the plastic moving outward from any thicker center section was reasonable and some clearance remained under the rim even on streamlined drivers. Here's the second change in bold and strikethrough :

(I) Discs (C) Guidelines for Discs Manufactured for PDGA Competition (6) have a flight plate that does not exceed 0.5 cm in thickness, including any raised features such as lettering, ridges, nipples, and other thickened parts. Discs with a thickened section atop or underneath the flight plate, however, may increase to 1.0 cm in flight plate thickness in this section only, provided that this section: (i) is circular in outline; (ii) is between 5 and 10 cm in diameter for an area with a uniform thickness that is centered on the center point of the disc; and (iii) gradually thins from the thickest section with a maximum slope of 60 degrees at the outer edge at a slope that averages no more than 50% (or 22.5 degrees) relative to the surrounding part of the flight plate. No part of the underside of the flight plate may be closer than 0.5 0.3 cm to the plane defined by the bottom of the rim.



Discs incorporating this new technology must still meet all other disc specifications such as flexibility and maximum weight for the diameter.