Clinometer Project

Finding the measurements of items using the angle measure found by a clinometer

  1. What was challenging about this activity. Explain?
    1. Measuring the distance from the object and making sure the clinometer was working correctly were difficult because they can mess up the entire measurement.
  2. What might explain why some groups have different answers for the same object?
    1. Differences in the angle measure as well as errors in the measurement of the distance from the ground may have caused differences
  3. What types of professions do you think might use indirect measurement?
    1. Professions that deal with the measurement of large or far objects, like an architect or engineer.
  4. Explain the steps needed to measure the height of a tree using a clinometer.
    1. First, it’s necessary to have a working clinometer. Then, you want pick a spot which you want to measure from and measure the distance from you to the tree. After that is complete, you should use the clinometer to look at the highest point of the tree and find the angle of elevation. After to finding these two measurement, you can solve for the height. After using tan of the angle, times the distance measurement to find part of the height of the tree, you have to add your height (minus a couple of inches to account for eye placement) to find the final height of the tree.