Personal Narrative: To Build A Car

I built a car. I was about 11 at the time. I remember it was a long summer day. The sun glistening on the white pavement. It was almost perfect: not too hot, not too humid. Simply nice. The only disappointment was it was boring. It was one of those days where riding a bike did not seem attractive; or playing ball. So I decided to do what any bored 11 year old boy would do on a summer afternoon: I built a car. It began as simply an adventure into the woods in hopes of discovering some new exotic scene. To my surprise, there it was: a long strand of silver wire, dangling from the neighbor’s fence. I broke of a piece and began to play with it. I discovered it was very flexible yet easily cut-table. I reported this news to my older brother, and he too found interest in the wire. Being quicker in thinking, he decided right away he was going to bend the wire into a cross. (His final product ended up looking like a wiry dagger). I pondered for some time about what to make of my wire. I always liked things you can interact with rather than stationary objects. In Haiti (my home country) I remember constructing toy cars from cans and bottle tops. We would attach strings to them and happily drag them along. Recalling this experience, I decided to build a car; not a car controlled by being pulled by a

I had to think outside the box a little. Instead of making a big car with a small steering mechanism, I decided I would create a small car with a big steering utility. I got to work. I finally managed to create the car after numerous attempts at making the front wheels tunable around a common axle as well as rotate. For the steering, I created two long rod-like structure whose purpose was to pull and push on the axle of the front wheels to control the direction on the car. Having successfully completed this goal, I smiled, took a picture and brought the completed car to my