Planimeter

A planimeter is a tool that helps you measure the area of a flat shape on a piece of paper or map. It's like a fancy ruler that can figure out the area of a shape, even if it's really weird-looking!

Imagine you have a large piece of paper with a shape drawn on it, like a squiggly circle or a jigsaw puzzle piece. To figure out the area of that shape, you'd normally have to use a bunch of formulas and math equations. But with a planimeter, all you have to do is place the tool on the paper and trace around the shape with a little wheel or pointer.

The planimeter has a special mechanism inside that keeps track of the distance you're tracing and the angles you're turning, allowing it to calculate the area of the shape as you move the tool around. It's kind of like a robot brain that does all the math for you!

Once you've traced all the way around the shape with the planimeter, you can read off the area in square units (like square centimeters or square inches) from a little display on the tool. That's it - no complicated formulas, no confusing math. Just an easy way to measure the area of any shape you can draw on a piece of paper!