Another Mystery Object

Dave Pedersen found this in one of the engineering labs.  It has a magnetic base and articulated joints giving about a zillion degrees of motion.  We have no idea what it was used for.  Any ideas?

Update: Well... I found out what this is used for.  So after you make your best guess, you can scroll down to the end of this post to see the answer.  :)  Any creative suggestions for what other uses we might find for this gizmo are always welcome.

As always, you can click on the pictures to see larger versions.

Here it is with different lighting.

Here is a close shot of the magnetic base.  You can see my reflexion in the chrome push button!

Here is a wide shot of studio three, which has become the printer room and photo center

 

FLASH!  I did a little searching online and found that this is used to hold a dial indicator for measuring stuff.  Our unit has more attachments than the ones I saw pictured online.  I suspect that one would never use this device with all those arms attached at the same time.  We seem to have a particularly complete set of  attachments.

You can see the magnetic bases Eclipse makes and some of the attachments at this web site.  The manufacturer has details and some small pictures too.