Pipette Project

Miranda Clausen
August 28, 2012


These are pipettes.

     Materials needed for this experiment 5 Pipettes, One empty 2 liter pop bottle, Water,Weights, and Tape. Safety concerns would be bottle cap flying off and water spillage. Goal is to get all 5 pipettes to go down 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and then back up 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
     The procedure would be first to get all the materials together. Now fill the 2 liter pop bottle with water, but leave at least an inch or two of air in the bottle. Now tape a weight on to the pipette, but not to big of a weight and fill the pipette with a small amount of water. Put the pipette with the weight inside of the 2 liter pop bottle. It should float because the pipette is less dense than the water. If it sinks that means it is more dense than the water and need to put on a smaller weight. Put the cap on the pop bottle and squeeze the pop bottle.The pipette should sink.  The air inside of the pipette becomes compressed and the water enters the pipette; which makes the pipette more dense than the water, so it sinks. Now stop squeezing the pop bottle. The pipette will rise to the top now because the water is released out of it and it is now less dense than the water.
      The 4 other pipettes will need different amounts of water in each of them. With the different amounts of water in each of them they will go down at different times.  The more water in the pipette the faster it will sink. The less amount of water the slower it will sink. Put the same weights on all 5 of the pipettes. The density of water is 1 g./ml., so the pipette must be less dense than water.
     All 5 of the pipettes should now be put into the pop bottle. Put the cap on it and squeeze the bottle slowly so that the pipettes go down one at a time. Release slowly after all 5 pipettes are down at the bottom. If you release slowly they should come up one at a time. If this does not work, try putting different amounts of water in the pipettes.
     We did not figure out the project until we saw another group do it. We also did not get to the Cartesian Divers or the other where it had to float in the middle and the rise back up.
     It did take us awhile to figure it out, but after we got it, it seemed easy and fun. A hydraulic lift is something else that uses the Pascal's Principle. We were amazed at first to see how they worked and how it was possible for them to go down and come back up without touching them, but that just shows us how much we still have to learn.