This project required disassembly of a wagon odometer replica, measuring all the parts, and creating them in CAD for use in exhibit graphic panels and diagrams.
Odometers of many designs were used by explorers, surveyors, and emigrants and allowed them to correctly ration food and take the correct turns. William Clayton was inspired to invent the roadometer by his first method of recording the distance the pioneers travelled each day. Clayton had determined that 360 revolutions of a wagon wheel made a mile, he then tied a red rag to the wheel and counted the revolutions to keep an accurate record of the mileage travelled. After seven days, this method became tiresome and Clayton went on to invent the roadometer, first used on the morning of May 12, 1847. (http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_Odometer.htm)
