A clinometer is a tool used to perform indirect measurements and approximate the heights of objects that would normally be difficult or impossible to measure. For instance, my group member and I used a clinometer that we built to determine the height of our school building. As you can see in the model I created above, our clinometer consists of a straw to look at objects through, a paper clip weight to locate the angle of elevation, and a protractor to measure the angle of elevation.

After measuring the distance from the base of an object, look through the straw of the clinometer to find the line of sight, or the hypotenuse, if the situation were represented with a triangle. Focus the end of the straw at the very top of the object being measured. When doing so, the paper clip weight will move the string to represent an angle. Measure the distance between the recorded angle and 90 degrees to find the angle of elevation. After finding the angle and one side of the triangle, use trigonometry functions to determine the height of the object.