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Anyway, regardless of all the caveats and disclaimers, those numbers all apply to home runs hit by humans. Surely theres a better way! The crew at YouTube channel Smarter Every Day set out to find it, by .
Its a harder problem than you might think. As hard as it is to hit a ball thrown by a major league pitcher, humans actually have an advantage: They can easily adjust their swing. Machines have a tougher time doing that, as the Smarter Every Day crew found out when building their machine. Its basically a motor that spins multiple bats at high speed. But without the split-second adjustments human batters make, just hitting a pitch is a challenge.
Once you do make contact, the high speed makes it easy to break a bat. And if you can keep the bat from breaking, theres still a big difference between a high-velocity groundball and a record-breaking home run. And dont forget the issue of the bat coming loose and flying 581 feet on its own.
Once the Smarter Every Day guys work the kinks out of their machine, they crank it up to full power, belting a shot that lands 717 feet away. Its a fun and impressive bit of engineering, even if itll never quite match the visceral thrill of seeing a human being blast a baseball into the stands.
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