Wood or Aluminum: Which Baseball Bat Hits the Ball the Furthest?

Overview

Objectives/Goals Which baseball bat, wooden or aluminum, will hit the baseball the farthest when hit from the sweet spot of the baseball bat? Methods/Materials The purpose of my project is to determine whether an aluminum baseball bat will hit the baseball further than a wooden baseball bat. The sweet spot of the baseball bat is defined as the exact spot that will cause the ball to go the farthest. The sweet spot will already be determined. Next, I made the pendulum that will be used to test the baseball bats for consistency in hitting. Twenty-five trials were performed on each baseball bat. After my testing, I will learn which baseball bat hits the baseball the farthest. Results The results, after 25 trials, were that the aluminum baseball bat hit the baseballs further than the wooden baseball bat. Aluminum baseball bat results: Shortest distance hit = 4.64 meters. Farthest distance hit = 7.59 meters. Average distance hit = 6.55 meters. The aluminum baseball bat, on average, would hit 1.71 meters farther than the wooden bat. Wooden baseball bat results: Shortest distance hit = 3.67 meters. Farthest distance hit = 6.98 meters. Average distance hit = 4.84 meters. The wooden baseball bat, on average, hit 1.91 meters less than the aluminum bat. Conclusions/Discussion After completing my investigation, I found that my hypothesis was correct. The aluminum bat hit farther than the wooden bat because it is a harder surface and it will go further.

Competition history

• CSEF 2009 Applied Mechanics & Structures · Entry J0207

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

• All Engineering projects
• CSEF Engineering projects
• Every CSEF 2009 project