Homemade Wooden Vernier Scales for Use by Blind Students

Because she had been blind since birth, we knew that our new student, Cricket, would be unable to make the necessary measurements needed to get any meaningful lab data while all of the other students would be able to use highly accurate commercial Vernier calipers. All we had on loan for Cricket was a Brailled plastic tactile meterstick with low resolution divisions to the nearest whole centimeter. This was unacceptable, considering that the other students were achieving very accurate and consistent readings with their analog Vernier calipers to the nearest 0.005 cm. So using the Vernier scale concept, we decided to make a low-tech tactile wooden “Vernier caliper” that would have much more resolution and be quick and easy to use by anyone, even if totally blind.