Firstly, the density of any substance is represented by the mass (amount of matter) as divided by the volume(amount of space). According to external websites, the mass of a penny is 2.5 grams.However, the volume of a penny is .35cm to the power of 3 (due to the thickness of the penny being extremely minimal.Thus the amount of density is extremely little). Therefore, the density of a penny is 0.875 g/cm cubed (dimensional analysis).As for an invention that could be used, that is possible with the usage of a series of measurements that can both calculate mass and volume and directly allocate that to attain density