The students successfully designed a comfortable, easy to use pipette, the 'Ergopip', which distributes workload to the user's fingers and is just as precise and reliable as existing versions.

Four students from Cambridge University have won a commercial manufacturing award as part of the Manufacturing Engineering Trips programme, run by the University’s Institute for Manufacturing.

The 'Shearline Manufacturability Award' was presented by leading manufacturing organisation, Shearline, to a group of students who, as part of their design project, created a redesign of the precision pipette, one of the most commonly used laboratory instruments, to address ease of use and ergonomic issues.

While current laboratory pipettes satisfy the need for precision and reliability, their design falls short in terms of ease of use. They are entirely thumb-operated and are known to cause cases of repetitive strain injury. The students successfully designed a comfortable, easy to use pipette, the 'Ergopip', which distributes workload to the user's fingers and is just as precise and reliable as existing versions.