Experimenting During Class

Today in class we filtered oil. It took us about 15 minutes to write our procedures down and talk about it amongst ourselves. After we were done discussing about how to filter the oil we then went on to the experiment. First, we took cheese cloth and put it over a big funnel. Second, we put the funnel over beaker. Third, we pour the oil into the funnel, but we made sure that the funnel and beaker were over the bucket of oil because we didn't want the oil to get on the table. Fourth, after we had pour the oil into the beakers we put them on hot plates. Here comes the trouble.....  We put about 10 beakers on the hot plates and it had to boil up to 100 degrees Celsius. I was one of the people that had to check the temperature, and I waited for about 10 minutes wondering "why isn't the oil boiling?" I told the people in my class that the temperature wouldn't go up, but they just told me to keep waiting. So I waited for about 5 minutes this time and the temperature still wouldn't go up so I think somebody told our teacher that the hot plates didn't work. Our teacher came by, checked the hot plates and power strips then realized that the circuit overloaded. So we basically didn't get anything done today. Even though we didn't get anything done today we still have to filter the oil by Friday, so we have to find another, faster way to filter the oil. If there's one thing I've learn today it's that you should always check to make sure everything works!