ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Profilograph

A profilograph is a special machine that helps people build roads that are smooth and easy to drive on. Imagine you're drawing a picture with a pencil. If you run your finger over the paper, you can feel the bumps and dips where the pencil lines are.

When people make roads, they want to make sure the road is very smooth so that cars can drive on it without bouncing around too much. That's where the profilograph comes in.

The profilograph is attached to a truck that drives slowly along the road, almost like a big vacuum cleaner. The machine has a lot of little wheels that touch the road and measure how high or low the surface is.

As the truck drives along, the profilograph collects all of this information and turns it into a picture of the road's surface. This picture shows all of the bumps and dips so that workers can figure out where they need to smooth things out.

It's kind of like using a magnifying glass to look closely at a picture you drew with your pencil. The profilograph helps road workers make sure the road is as smooth as possible for all the cars driving on it.
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