How High Can You Throw a Baseball? A Tennis Ball? A Football? A Golf Ball?
Summary
*Note:
For this science project you will need to develop your own experimental procedure. Use the information in the summary tab as a starting place. If you would like to discuss your ideas or need help troubleshooting, use the Ask An Expert forum. Our Experts won't do the work for you, but they will make suggestions and offer guidance if you come to them with specific questions.
If you want a Project Idea with full instructions, please pick one without an asterisk (*) at the end of the title.
If you want a Project Idea with full instructions, please pick one without an asterisk (*) at the end of the title.
Abstract
How high can you throw different types of balls, like a golf ball, a basketball, and a football? Would one of them go higher than the others? Do factors like mass, shape, and volume influence the final height? You can measure the approximate maximum height a thrown ball reaches by measuring the time it spends in the air.
To do this project, you'll need at least one ball and a helper with a stopwatch. Your helper should start timing just as you release the ball, and stop right when the ball touches the ground. The height, h (in meters), can be calculated from the time aloft, t as follows:
h = 4.9 × (0.5 × t)2
For height in feet, change "4.9" in the above equation to "16". (Wiese, 2002, 20-22.)
Advanced project idea: If you've taken high school physics, you should be able to derive the equation above for yourself. Can you develop an explanation for how high you can throw different balls based on the forces acting on the balls?
Bibliography
Wiese, J., 2002. Sports Science: 40 Goal-Scoring, High-Flying, Medal-Winning Experiments for Kids. New York, NY: John Wiley and Sons.
Ask an Expert
Do you have specific questions about your science project? Our team of volunteer scientists can help. Our Experts won't do the work for you, but they will make suggestions, offer guidance, and help you troubleshoot.
Careers
If you like this project, you might enjoy exploring these related careers:
Career Profile
Humans have always longed to fly and to make other things fly, both through the air and into outer space—aerospace engineers are the people that make those dreams come true. They design, build, and test vehicles like airplanes, helicopters, balloons, rockets, missiles, satellites, and spacecraft.
Read more
Career Profile
Physicists have a big goal in mind—to understand the nature of the entire universe and everything in it! To reach that goal, they observe and measure natural events seen on Earth and in the universe, and then develop theories, using mathematics, to explain why those phenomena occur. Physicists take on the challenge of explaining events that happen on the grandest scale imaginable to those that happen at the level of the smallest atomic particles. Their theories are then applied to…
Read more
Career Profile
Our universe is full of matter and energy, and how that matter and energy moves and interacts in space and time is the subject of physics. Physics teachers spend their days showing and explaining the marvels of physics, which underlies all the other science subjects, including biology, chemistry, Earth and space science. Their work serves to develop the next generation of scientists and engineers, including all healthcare professionals. They also help all students better understand their…
Read more
Career Profile
Aerospace engineering and operations technicians are essential to the development of new aircraft and space vehicles. They build, test, and maintain parts for air and spacecraft, and assemble, test, and maintain the vehicles as well. They are key members of a flight readiness team, preparing space vehicles for launch in clean rooms, and on the launch pad. They also help troubleshoot launch or flight failures by testing suspect parts.
Read more
Related Links
Cite This Page
General citation information is provided here. Be sure to check the formatting, including capitalization, for the method you are using and update your citation, as needed.MLA Style
Science Buddies Staff.
"How High Can You Throw a Baseball? A Tennis Ball? A Football? A Golf Ball?" Science Buddies,
16 Mar. 2022,
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/Sports_p035/sports-science/how-high-can-you-throw-a-ball.
Accessed 22 May 2022.
APA Style
Science Buddies Staff.
(2022, March 16).
How High Can You Throw a Baseball? A Tennis Ball? A Football? A Golf Ball?
Retrieved from
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project-ideas/Sports_p035/sports-science/how-high-can-you-throw-a-ball
Last edit date: 2022-03-16
Explore Our Science Videos
How to Make an Electromagnet
Why Don't Paper Circuits Need Resistors for LEDs?
Build a motion-activated guard robot