A large wooden caliper is available for teaching students to read the Vernier scale. The caliper is located in room 215A, the storage room for room 215 on shelf D5.
For a reminder on how to read the Vernier scale:
This caliper demonstration can measure to the hundredths of an (enlarged) inch. As shown above, when the caliper is completely closed, nothing is measured, and the zeros on both the large and small scales line up.
When measuring, first look at where the zero on the small scale rests. On the first picture below, this area is indicated by the red circle. This zero is the starting point of the measurement.
Now to begin, where does this zero (on the small scale), fall on the large scale? The last dash on the large scale that this zero (on the small scale) falls after is where you read off the measurement. For the example below, the second picture shows that the zero on the small scale falls after 1.6. These are the first two digits of the measurement.
To find the hundredths digit, we look to the small scale. At some point, a line on the small scale will align with a line on the large scale (or at least get very close to doing so). This is your hundredths digit. Looking at the third image below, we see that the hundredth’s digit for this example is 8.
Putting it all together, this measurement reads 1.68.
