If you want to go a mathmatics heavy route you could create a device that measures height via the time it takes a specefic mass to drop from it, think a hollow tube with a ball in it - the ball has a slider under it that you can slide up and down the tube, slide the ball to the correct height of the object and then slide it out underneath the ball.
Ideally when you remove the slide, it'd automatically start a timer but you can do this manually yourself. When the ball hits the bottom ideally it'd stop the timer, but this can be manually done too. Now using the data collected from the operation you're a few simple physics equations away from determining the height of the object.
As far as practicality goes, it's not all that practical for small things - but think large object where you'd have difficulty finding a ruler long enough to measure it, it could be a bit more accurate for these types of operations.
Even if it is a big unpractical mess, it could still garner you some attention for trying to approach the situation with some sort of physics based operation that's different from the obvious (IE a stick with lines for distance).
