Volvelle

They can be traced back to "certain Arabic treatises on humoral medicine"[2] and to the Persian astronomer, Abu Rayhan Biruni (c. 1000), who made important contributions to the development of the volvelle.

In Reinventing the Wheel, author Jessica Helfand introduces twentieth-century volvelles with this: The twentieth century saw a robust growth in the design, manufacture, and production of a new generation of independent, free-standing volvelles.

Categorically, they not only represent an unusually eclectic set of uses, but demonstrate, too, a remarkable range of stylistic, compositional, mechanical, informational, and kinetic conceits.

Twentieth-century volvelles—often referred to as wheel charts—offer everything from inventory control to color calibration, mileage metering to verb conjugation.

They anticipate animal breeding cycles and calculate radiation exposure, measure chocolate consumption and quantify bridge tips, chart bird calls, convert metrics, and calculate taxes.

A volvella of the moon. A volvella is a moveable device for working out the position of the sun and moon in the zodiac, 15th century
A sixteenth-century wheel chart, a page of Astronomicum Caesareum by Petrus Apianus , 1540, apparently relating to the Moon. The red dragons mark out one odd-sized and 26 equal-sized central divisions; the orbital period of the moon is 27.3 days.
A volvelle from the sixteenth century edition of the De sphaera mundi by Johannes de Sacrobosco .