Shore durometer

Okay kiddo, you know how sometimes when you pinch something really hard, it feels really tough and hard to squish, like a rock or a hard ball? And sometimes when you pinch something like a pillow or a sponge, it feels really soft and easy to squish, like a stuffed animal?

Well, a shore durometer is kinda like a special tool that grown-ups use to measure how hard or soft something is. It's kind of like a tiny pin or needle that they press into the thing they want to test, like the pinching that you did earlier.

When they press the needle into the thing, it will sink in more or less depending on how hard or soft the thing is. Then, they look at a special little gauge on the shore durometer that shows how deep the needle went in, and that tells them how hard or soft the thing is.

Shore durometers are very useful for testing things like rubber or other materials that need to be a certain level of hardness or softness. Sometimes they even use different kinds of shore durometers for different materials because they all need to be tested in slightly different ways.

So, a shore durometer is just a tool that grown-ups use to test how hard or soft things are, kind of like pinching something but with a special needle and a special gauge! Pretty cool, huh?