INTRO:

The Porsche 911 is possibly the greatest and most iconic car of all time, and today I’ll be telling you how it came to be.

(and yes, it is pronounced Porsche-uh)

CHAPTER 1: Wait… we’re talking about the VW beetle?

The Porsche 911 came from the Porsche 356, and the Porsche 356 came from the original Volkswagen Beetle/type 1. So lets start in 1930s Germany with Ferdinand Porsche. When you don’t have an absolute ton of money, being in a dictatorship is hard. So the Nazi government decided to make a contract for a car that was practical, was designed for the new at the time Autobahn network, and most importantly, was cheap. Ferdinand Porsche saw this contract and wanted to build a car for it, but the company he was working for, Mercedes-Benz, wasn’t interested. So he decided to make his own car from scratch with his son, Ferry. making a city car with 1930s technology and on a low budget would prove to have many challenges. For example, a water-cooled engine wouldn’t fit in the small prototype, so a new system using air to cool the engine had to be made. When the car was finished, the handling was. terrible and was mainly compromised by it’s 1930s suspension, so a new type of suspension had to be made. Finally, the prototype was finished, and was ready to be tested, but before the testing could begin, WW2 started, and all the Volkswagen beetle’s production was cancelled to focus on the war. However, most of the Volkswagen beetle’s design was used on the Volkswagen Kubelwagen, one of the most popular cars used in WW2. But  things were about to get even worse for Volkswagen, as Americans bombed their factory from the skies above Germany, and that was the end of that.

Kind of… after WW2, a British general, Ivan Hirst, saw potential in the Beetle (and the Volkswagen bus they were also working on before WW2) and he reverted the car’s production.

CHAPTER 2: Becoming a sports car

After WW2, Ferry Porsche saw potential in the beetle’s design, and he thought it could be a good sports car with some design changes, and it would also be a cheap way to make a sports car, which was a high priority, because Germany was in shambles. So he gave the car a sportier design, changed the carburetors, and made a lot of other changes, and the Porsche 356 was made!   the Porsche 356 was a car that was powerful, (for the time) lightwweight, and good-looking. It competed in many racing events from the 24 hours of Le mans to rallies, and it was very successful and sold well. the long production run of the well-rounded Porsche 356 ended in 1965. One year after the…

CHAPTER 3: The Porsche 911

In 1963, the Porsche 911 was unveiled to the public at the Frankfurt auto show. Its idea was largely based on the 356, just more cylinders, (it used a Boxer-6 engine) more power, and more advanced technology, and once again, it was an instant hit in almost everything! It could conquer races from the grueling Paris-Dakar rally, and did well in lower classes at Le Mans. Overall, the Porsche 911 was a motorsport success, but for a long time, not a sales success. In the 80s, Porsche was doing so poorly that they had to make a new type of 911, the 928 and 944. these cars were front engined, rear-wheel-drive, used V8s and four cylinders, compared to the normal 911’s rear engined, six-cylinder engines because the designers over at Porsche decided that their Porsches weren’t selling because their design based on the Volkswagen Beetle was old and overused, so they completely reversed it. eventually, Porsche realized that a) that was absolutely ridiculous, b) they could just give their Porsches more modern features, like water-cooling,  and c) why not make a cheaper, more fun-focused speedster? Porsche actually did make a cheaper, more fun-focused roadster called the Boxster, and it quickly became one of the best-selling Porsches of all time. Porsche used the profits from the Boxster to make the also great-selling Cayenne SUV.

 

CHAPTER 4: The Future of Porsche

The Porsche 911, Cayenne, and Boxster (and it’s coupe sibling, the Cayman) continue to be best-selling models, in fact, since Porsche is the best-selling car brand in the Volkswagen group, production of Volkswagen cars are stopped to ensure that there are enough parts for the Porsches during a supply-chain issue. Porsche also is currently making the Porsche Taycan, an all-electric sedan to keep up with the Tesla Model S. It is rumored that the next Porsche 911 will be electric, but who knows what the future holds?

THE END

Last week, my grade went to the museum of natural sciences to learn about plants, animals, and social terms such as race. Here’s how it went:

Since the school was ~40 minutes from the museum, we had to take a kind of long bus ride, but it was all worth it to go into the museum because we were almost immediately greeted with a gigantic sculpture of a dinosaur. We were split into groups by advisory, and then paired up with another advisory, so the entire grade was split up into 4 groups: 2 groups going into the museum and investigating animal exhibits, and 2 groups going into the museum and looking at statues. Luckily for me, my group was one of the 2 groups that went to look at the animals, and it was pretty fun! We started out looking at a huge exhibit showing all rare stones found in North Carolina. Next, we went to another huge exhibit with fake forest animals in their habitat.  We also got to see live amphibians, fish, and a huge turtle. After that, we went across a huge bridge to another building of the museum to a see a few exhibits about the earth, planets, and weather. We also got to view a really cool exhibit about technology and 3-D printing, which had really cool objects, structures, almost fidget toys, and a cool set of kinetic drums with buttons that made drum noises that ran of of the kinetic energy from your hand. Finally, we head back down and outside of the museum for lunch.

After lunch and we went up a few levels via escalators to view an exhibit about bugs and we saw spiders, beetles, and -my favorite of the exhibit- Ghost Shrimp! Next, we viewed an important exhibit about race. The exhibit explained how race was a made-up term and it’s really just the amount of melanin in a person’s skin. Personally, I really liked the exhibit, but I wish it was in the lobby, or a more popular area that behind the cafe on the top floor, because it covers  such an important topic. After that, we went back to the 1st level to look at the dinosaur sculpture and an ocean exhibit with a combination of actual animals and sculptures. Finally, we circled back to the lobby to view some more animal sculptures.

After that, we went back on the bus back to our school. I really liked the museum and thought that the exhibits were really cool and informative.

 

 

 

A Perfect World

 

• The Name of your planet: Planet Binguosa
• Location of your planet: (what galaxy or solar system, or near what star?) Baby Boom Galaxy
• Detailed description of the physical features in your world: 

Plants: Planet Binguosa features plants that can shapeshift, never die, and eat the sap from glowing trees (trees that glow different colors depending on their age) 

Water: Planet Binguosa does not feature any water, but it does have the sap from glowing trees, which taste, and ingredients can vary depending on the tree and its age. The most sought-after glowing tree is the star tree. (it is called that because of its blue and yellow star pattern) It has an amazing taste that can change depending on what the animal that is consuming it likes, and it also contains nutritious ingredients like vitamin C and protein.

Rocks: Planet Binguosa has carbon, titanium, granite, turquoise, gold, silver, and a new element called “Bing 001” that is normal titanium, but can reconstruct itself once broken.

Air: Planet Binguosa has the same air as Earth, just more oxygen-dense. The wind can travel as slow as ⅙ miles per hour and as fast as 88 mph (back to the future reference!?)

Sky / Moons: Planet Binguosa has a sky that glows turquoise due to the odd chemicals in the atmosphere that reflect the sun’s energy, so when the sun moves past one side of the planet, the sky stops glowing. Bingousa also has 4 moons: Duna, Iris, Baez, and Jeff.

• Animals and nature Planet Bingousa features all the animals (including humans) that Earth has, but some are combined, like the monkey-tiger and the jellyfish-shark
• Political system(s) Planet Bingousa has a human-run government in the capitalist-style, with a currency being Bobux.
• Societies and how everyone gets along Societies get along pretty nicely because the whole planet is just one country, but still has different regions and cultures.
• Technologies Planet Bingousa has much more advanced technology than Earth, mainly because of two materials: Bing 001 (see above) which can be used to make buildings and other structures, because it is strong, will never run out, and is environmentally-friendly. And next, Weed P1. When mixed with Bing 001, It creates a reliable and efficient supply of power that can be powerful enough to power all of Bingousa’s regions and cities depending on the amount of Weed P1 and Bing 001.

• (Additional) On planet Bingousa, you can have lemon stones as pets. Lemon stones are yellow rocks that actually have a brain and can fly, and are even immortal to aging.

 

Planet Bingousa is an amazing and interesting planet featuring a sturdy and incredible ecosystem with all the animals you can expect from earth, and more! Let’s show you around in…

…Life in Bingousa!

 

Food: We have glowing-trees that provide resources and food, such as Waltuh, a cooked version of the tree sap with spices from earth. As for meat, all forms of meat come from normal cows that can be found on Earth, due to similar conditions, so similar animals. You can get most of the food by farming, or buying at the local Bing store for up to 16.50 bobux.

Geography: Bingousa also features a diverse society with 4 regions: The quandale region, the Juandavius region, the Frongus region, and lastly, the susi Baka region. They all have different cultures. For example, it is mandatory to own a Capybara in the Quandale region. (Yes, there are capybaras in Bingousa). All of these regions are located at either the top of the planet, or the bottom of the planet. But in the middle, there is a vast desert called “The Great plain.” Above, it is mostly a wasteland with desert storms, burning temperature s in the day and freezing in the night, and a giant  crater on the right side (it is not discovered yet, but most scientists believe that this is from an asteroid hitting it 999,888,777,666,555,444,333,222,111 years ago). However, the hidden Floppa reigon has built an advanced network of tunnels all across the desert to live in.

Economy: As mentioned before, Planet Bingousa’s currency is called Bobux, (1 bobux = 1 ¼ dollars)  which can be deposited via Biotech phone money, (we’ll get to that later) or using coins with little dog illustrations on the top. (Dogecoin reference!?) Like Earth, Bobux has a blockchain network that normal people can invest in, but there is a limit, and terms and conditions to keep people from losing all of their money. 

Technology: As mentioned before, A company called Biotech makes phones, and their scientists were actually the first people to discover Bingousa’s incredible power 

source, (before that, the oil and gasoline found in The Great Plain were used) and Biotech has been using it in their phones and computers ever since, making Planet Bingousa have a very advanced society. Here are some of the planet’s accomplishments:

1. The first working anti-gravity plane
2. The first gigantic starship
3. The first space plane to reach another galaxy in less than 10 years
4. A  30,000 mph car capable of hovering
5. A Mach-111 plane
6. The HiJet engine
7. Successful cloning
8. The first ever Dison Sphere

And more!