Guess what this is...

Nothing to do with worms, not a block heater. Terrorist torture device I can see that but no.

I'm guessing to check temp of oil

Ding ding ding we have a winner!.

Don't remember why he made it but I remember him calibrating it. It has a variable resistor and changes resistance based on temperature. He made a graph and would compare the resistance against it and get the temperature. He did it on paper (pre PCs).