Peripherals/Scale

This scale could be;

put on the floor and weigh students
hung from a tree to weigh crops, etc
put on a desktop to weigh items
used to measure friction, simple harmonic motion, impact in collisions, or centripetal force.
used as a hand dynamometer (measure grip strength and to perform muscle fatigue studies)

Technology

The scales work on the principle of load cell technology in which load cells sense the weight of objects under certain conditions.

The majority of today's designs use strain gauges as the sensing element, whether foil or semiconductor.