Creating My Car

The task given was to create a car that works solely by gravity. After creating sturdy and efficient cars, we will race the cars down wooden ramps. When creating this car, I had to rememer to keep a sleek shape, a good amount of weight, smooth and round wheels, and a neat design. Throughout the process, I faced countless obstacles and spent several hours. I had a great blueprint including all the neccesary components, but creating the car was not a simple as I thought. The materials I had were the following: a plastic bottle, cardboard, woodglue, paper, colored pencils, CDs, a small box, and thread rolls. A major problem I faced was attatching the wheels to an axle and attatching the axle to the body.Originally, I spent three hours trying to attatch CDs to a pencil. However, this was a difficult task because the wholes in the cds were much larger than the axle. As a result, the wheels were not stable. Because of this failure, I decided to use thread rolls instead. The whole in the thread rolls was the perfect size for a straw to fit through.
For the body, I originally utilized a large, green, and transperent soda bottle. I was planning to use the soda bottle because it had a sleek shape, a cool color, and I could fill it with liquids or solids to make my car heavier. The weight would cause gravity to have more impact on the car. However, when I added water to make the car heavier, the car was off balance and started tipping. Without the water, the car began skidding. As a result, I replaced the bottle with a box that was heavier, sturdy, and very pretty. In order to make the car heavier, I added clay sculptures which would add detail as well as a little weight. When I tested the final car, it worked great. After all those failures, I finally made a car I am proud of!

How does our brain work?

"If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't.”
~Emerson M. Pugh



Even with the stunning technology scientists own in the 21st century, the brain remains to be the most complex and mystifying machine known to humans.



What does each part of the brain do?
-The frontal lobe is a part of the cerebral cortex in the brain. This part of the brain effects our reasoning. planning, problem solving, emotions, parts of speech and movement.
-The second major division in the cerebral cortex is the parietal lobe. This part of the brain processes sensory information such as touch, temperature, or pain. Our thought process also takes place in this portion of the brain.
-The occipital lobe is the third major division in the cerebral cortex. It functions to process visual information.
-Lastly, there is the temporal lobe. This major division controls hearing, memory, and learning.
-The cerebellum helps us maintain balance and posture.
-The brain stem controls several basic actions. For instance, breathing, sleeping, eating, heart beat, and blood pressure.

Mysteries of the Mind
According to livescience these are the top 9 mysteries that perplex scientists about the brain.

1) Consciousness: Your consciouness is your awarness and the sensations or your surrounding. This simple act has become a brainteaser for scientists.
2)Deep Freeze: Scientists believe that the body and the brain can be thawed and revived in the future. However, so far this is not possible.
3) Why do humans age?
4)Are thoughts and personalities controlled by genes or the enviornment?
5)Why in the world to we laugh? (HAHA~ I never quite understood that either!)
6)Why are some memories hard to forget? (With research, scientists found out that the hippocampus is resposible for storing memory.)
7)How are "phantom feelings" caused? "Phantom limb" is an anomaly which causes one to feel warmth, pressure, itching, or pain due to a mssing limb. Scientists have two theories as to why this occurs; however, they are not sure.
8)Why do we sleep? Why is sleep a crucial aspect in life?
9)Why do we dream?

websites I used
http://www.neuroskills.com/tbi/bfrontal.shtml
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/lobe.html
www.livescience.com