Hand measuring order tool

The top of the object should just line up with the top of your thumb, and the bottom of the object should just line up with the tip of your little finger. Therefore, whatever you can obscure with your extended hand is three times farther away from you than it is tall. Mark your location on the floor with a piece of tape. Use the tape as a reference, and measure your distance to the object in centimeters. Use the known ratio and the distance to the object to find the height of the object without measuring it.

This is called an indirect measurement. Now measure the height of the object directly with your measuring tape. How well did the Handy Measuring Tool method work?

Calculate your error: Find the difference between the height you found indirectly and the height you measured directly. Divide this difference by the actual measured height of the object. Multiply this quotient by to get percent error. What angle is swept out by your hand when your fingers are extended? Using the same procedure, find the ratio for your fist-to-arm length ratio. Will it be a larger or smaller ratio than the extended hand-to-arm length ratio?

Measure the length of your arm length in fists do not include your thumb when your arm is extended at shoulder height. Be careful not to roll your fist along your arm. What is the ratio of height of your fist to length of your arm? Most people have a ratio.

Close one eye and look down your straightened arm to locate an object that you can just cover with your fist. The top of the object should just line up with the top of your fist, and the bottom of the object should just line up with bottom of your fist.

Make sure you are facing the object and keeping your elbow straight. The ratio changes if you bend your arm. Calculate your error: Find the difference between the height you found indirectly and the height you actually measured. What angle is swept out by your fist? Hint: Compare your fist to something known, like your extended hand, or to a known angle. Two similar triangles are created; one is embedded within the other. These heights and distances are proportional:. A geometric proof of why this works can be shown using similar triangles click to enlarge the diagram below.

You can model these triangles with a long piece of string. Ask a partner to extend her hand and find an object that she can just obscure with her hand when her arm is extended. Tape one end of the string to the top of the object. Ask her to hold the string next to her eye then continue with the rest of the string back to the bottom of the object.

A smaller triangle is embedded in this large triangle. It has two sides formed by the string, and its third side formed by her hand. These two triangles are similar.

Next to the post where your hand stops is a number which is the hole size of the hand that is on that post. In the example shown you will see that the hands on the gauge are measuring. The smaller hole size is the minute hand and the larger hole size is the hour hand.

Along the top of the gauge you can lay your hand to find the length of your hand which is measured from the center of the hole to the tip of the hand and you always use the minute hand to determine the length needed as this is the longer hand in the pair. By using a digital gauge Simply place the flat sides of your gauge against the hour wheel and this will show you your hand hole size.

The hour hand is the last hand removed or the first hand put on your watch for a basic 2 or 3 hand movement. Simply place the flat sides of your gauge against the canon pinion which is the next step up on the hand posts and this will show you your hand hole size.

This is the 2nd hand removed or the 2nd hand you put on your watch for a basic 2 or 3 hand movement. Simply place the flat sides of your gauge against the sweep second pinion that is sticking out the farthest on your hand posts.