The Sound of a Laser Blaster: Acoustic Dispersion in Metal Springs Analyzed with Mobile Devices and Open-Source PC Audio Software

The typical sound of George Lucas’ laser blaster in the “Star Wars” series is well known. What does a laser blaster in “Star Wars” sound like, and why? Here we show a simple way to produce this sound by using low-cost lab material, like a spring or a Slinky (Fig. 1). Building on the work of Crawford, who analyzed the sound of a Slinky using oscilloscopes, we present a technique for analyzing the sound using mobile devices. For a deeper quantitative analysis, a PC with open-source software is used.