For big game days, Penn State football fans wear all white -- and now, officials are tracking the white noise in the Whitehouse.

Engineers in Penn State's graduate program in acoustics are measuring the sound generated by the crowd at a football game using a HEAD visor, a device that can measure and pinpoint sound levels.

Andrew Barnard, a senior research assistant at the Applied Research Laboratory, said the athletic department approached him two years ago to measure the sound levels at Beaver Stadium.

"The department wanted to know how loud the crowd was, and they wanted recordings to use during the team's practice," Barnard said.

Twelve different sound level meters have been installed inside and outside of the stadium. When Penn State played Iowa in the Whitehouse game last weekend, Barnard and other graduate students in the acoustics program stood at each 10-yard line and held sound meters pointed toward the crowd.

At points during the game, sound levels reached up to 110 decibels.

"You know if you're at a rock concert? If you're standing right in front of the speakers -- that's how loud 110 dB is," Barnard said.

Some students said they love being a part of the "Greatest Show in College Football" and are proud to contribute to what makes the stadium so loud.

Hollis Leidy said she got to go to her first game this year and quickly became obsessed with the energy of everyone around her.

"The second everyone started screaming, you could feel it in your body," Leidy (freshman-division of undergraduate studies) said. "It's amazing."

Other students said the combination of noise and the amount of people is a great experience. Lena Harper (freshman-engineering) said she went to a small high school that did not even have a football team and called the transition to Penn State football inside Beaver Stadium "awesome."

The research team is currently working with data to see where the loudest part of the stadium is located, Barnard said.

"That'd be so cool if it got louder," Leidy said. "It really gets you into it."

Game noise level can predicted depending on whom the team is playing and how well the game is going. The crowd was loudest when the ball was in Iowa's possession, reaching a level where it was only possible for the football players to communicate within one foot of each other, said Barnard.

"It definitely depends on how the team is doing," he said. "If that game means a lot to the crowd, it's going to be loud, and if it's a close game, it's going to get louder as the game goes on."

Some students said a major part of going to a Penn State football game is the experience of being in the student section.

"You get sucked into the crowd atmosphere," Sean Meadows (freshman-information sciences and technology) said.