How do I find the hight of a tree by using measurements without climbing?

Question

I really need to know how high a sign is so I can rent a lift to get to the bulbs. My best guess is 35 ft. but that is the problem, it is only a guess. Help.

Answer 1

There's one easy angle: 45 degrees. Use that. (Fold a square in half and use that).

Find a spot that from which you view the sign at a 45 degree angle. Its height is the horizontal distance from the sign plus the height of your eye.

Answer 2

Here is an old Boy Scout method.

(1) Get someone or something of known height, like 5 ft or 6 ft. and have them/it stand next to and in front of the tree.

(2) You get a stick like a pencil and go "petty far" away and look at the person/thing. Hold up the pencil at arm's length with your thumb against the pencil. Extend the pencil above your thumb so that the top of the pencil is at the level of the top of the person's head and the tip of your thumb is at the person's feet. That counts as "1".

(4) Keeping your thumb at the same spot on the pencil and your arm at the same length, raise your arm slightly until your thumb is lined up with the person's head (where the top of the pencil was). That counts as "2" (two heights of the person).

(5) Remember where the top of the pencil is with respect to a point on the tree.

(6) Lift your arm so that your thumb is at that point. That counts as "3"

Keep repeating until you get to the top of the tree. If it takes 4 and a third of those lengths and the person is 5'5" tall, the tree is 4.3333 x 5.62 feet tall or 23.5 feet.

Works every time. Do it over a few times and take the average to enhance the accuracy.

Use a ruler with markings so that you can estimate the fractional amount of the last measurement more accurately.

Answer 3

Make yourself a square and fold it half diagonally into a triangle.
Keeping the base of the triangle level with the ground, hold the triangle to your eye and look up the diagonal fold.
Move back or forwards until the tip of the object is lined up to the slope of the diagonal.
Measure the distance between you and the base of the object, and add your own height. That is the height of the object.

What you basically have done is made an imaginary triangle with a 45 degree angle. This is where the height will be the same length as the base.

Answer 4

One quick way is to do the following -- NO MATH REQUIRED:
1. stand back some distance from the sign
2. hold a long stick (yard stick, broom stick, etc.) at arms length so that it blocks out the view of the sign (top to bottom).
3. move the stick so that the top of the stick appears to be the top of the sign;
4. move you hand holding the stick up or down the stick so that the base of the sign appears to be even with where you are holding the stick while maintaining step 3;
5. making sure that you have the stick set according to Steps 3 and 4, and keeping a tight hold on the stick, rotate the stick 90 degrees (like it was a tree falling over) so that it is now perpendicular to the base of the sign.
6. keeping the hand holding the stick even with the base of the sign, observe the spot on the ground where it would be based on the top of your stick. (have a partner move to that spot the same distance from you as the sign is while you direct them left/right, etc. until it appears they are at the point of your still outstretched stick.
7. use a tape measure and measure from the base of the sign to the point where your partner is standing.

Answer 5

Throw a piece of stone vertically upwards towards the sing.
The stone should not touch the sign or anything else. You have to throw the stone just at the sign level and as it reached that height, it should stop momentarily and starts to fall freely.

Measure the descending time of the stone. From the sign down to the ground.

Use the following formula.

h=1/2 g (t)^2

say you measured 1.5 seconds:

then the height would be
h=1/2 (32.2) (1.5)^2
h= 36.2 ft.

Answer 6

Measuring the shadow of the tree is the second step, but first measure your own shadow. Use that measurement and your height as two angles of a right triangle. Now set up a ratio with the length of the tree's shadow, and the height will be your unknown. Cross multiply to solve for your unknown.

Answer 7

Measure the shadow, then get the angle from the end of the shadow to the top of the sign. You will then have 2 of the angles (the sign to the shadow is 90 degrees) and the length of 1 side.

Answer 8

yeah, use trigonometry, but a more acurate way to do it as oposed to using a shadow would be to find a pole or somthing taht you are sure of its hight then use taht as a measurement through a surveors compass. compare the distance you were from teh known object and fidn the angle of slope that both the top of the object and the tree, then, measure the distance between the two and find out what point on the slope taht the top of the tree would be =D

Answer 9

whilst i become little we used to hold out interior the buddies tree for hours on end, i become the sole one to ever climb to the surprising. i've got additionally achieved it those days together as taking part in conceal and look for interior the lifeless of night. To right this moment ?I nevertheless love mountaineering. At a summer camp I went to i become the sole man or woman at camp to climb to the surprising of the 40 toes. rock wall blindfolded.

Answer 10

This will sound really nerdy, but if you measured the angle of the sun in the sky and the length of the shadow you could use trigonometry.