B.C.-made trackers help locate golf discs lost in the weeds

A company based in Victoria, B.C., has developed technology to help disc golfers find errant discs that have ended up in a bush or buried under debris. 

MeepMeep — named for the sound made by Road Runner, the Looney Tunes character that consistently evades Wile E. Coyote — uses technology similar to that of AirTags, which are used to locate lost luggage. 

A single MeepMeep locator, which retails for about $30, weighs about seven grams and adheres to the bottom of a disc.

"We take that technology and encase it in a proprietary case and use a special adhesive so that it can actually go on to a player's disc and have that robust strength, so if you hit a tree, rock … it will actually stay on," MeepMeep CEO and co-founder Eve Olynyk told CBC's Rohit Joseph.

Players also need an app on their phone to use the locator, so if they lose a disc, they can set off an alarm to help them find it. 

"It really allows players to save that hassle of digging through brushes, of getting scratched up," said Olynyk, who grew up playing disc golf on Salt Spring Island.

Laura Mason with B.C. Disc Sports, a non-profit organization dedicated to making the sport more accessible, says losing discs is one of the biggest struggles players face. 

The cost of replacing lost discs, which retail anywhere from $10 to $25, can add up quickly, a particular concern for a sport that's meant to be low barrier.

She said the community has figured out ways to reunite disc golfers with stray discs, such as writing names and phone numbers on discs, building lost-and-found boxes and using social media.

Mason was interested to hear about MeepMeep, but said the weight of a tracking device could impact a disc's flight.

Due to the casual nature of the game, it's tough to know exactly how many people are playing disc golf across the province, but Olynyk said the number of people out on courses increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. About half of Canada's more than 300 courses are located in British Columbia and Ontario. 

The tracker, she said, was built with accessibility in mind. 

"We really look to help make sure that players with, say, vision or cognitive impairments can actually use our software and get into the sport," she said.