Here's an idea that I haven't yet seen (not exactly, anyway):

At the bottom of a 45 foot water well (or pipe) there's an object (with a hook or something) that must be retrieved. The challenge is to pump the well dry and then lift out the object (perhaps with a vehicle obstacle course so the pump/crane have to be mobile and maneuverable). The scientific principle exposed here is that you can't do suction pumping over about 30 feet of depth, so the pump has to be electric/hydraulic/mechanical and be lowered by crane down the hole as you pump... It might be necessary to build a spotlight/spotting scope to see the object at the bottom of the well.

-- Theo Smit (tsmit@home.com), February 15, 2001

Answers

Why waste time pumping hole dry? Oilfeild people fish objects out of oilwells a mile deep filled with water. How does the two ways to skin the cat rule apply here? I like the idea of fishing for objects down a shaft though. Plexi tubing at bottom of pipe for the camera work would give the viewers something to see.

-- Stephen A. Binion (Stephenbinion@hotmail.com), February 15, 2001.

You'd murk up the water (it could be a 2' diameter so things at the bottom would be pretty dark anyway) and set it up so that without seeing it you couldn't retrieve the thing. Two ways to do it: Different pump types (hydraulic vs. electric?), screw-type or other centrifugal vs PD pump, or get one team to build a submersible remote vision system (not electronic...) to latch their hook, while the other team has to pump.

-- Theo Smit (tsmit@home.com), February 16, 2001.