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it's coming around the corner!!We are at the second-to-last week of our Genius Hour project. We have a lot of things to do, and we are struggling to manage our time in these last few weeks before winter break. Let's talk about it!
Mattie: I'm quite stressed about the final presentation. I've been working on the slideshow and I don't know how to not put too much information on the slides. We have so much information to share and I don't know how to say enough but not too much. It's looking a little crazy right now. We've done everything that there really is to do on the Bronco. We didn't do everything that we wanted to do within the time that we had, but we did it to the best of our abilities. We are also continuing to work on it past this projects deadline. I am going to miss our Genius Hour Wednesdays. It was always such a peaceful day. It reminded me of how we had Wednesdays at home last year for the B-day and A-day students. It was a good day to just sit down, write a blog, and not worry about the day we have left ahead of us. Max: I am also going to miss our Wednesdays. I enjoyed sitting down and working on this project. We always sit in our little corner and just try to have fun with it. I agree with Mattie, our presentation has so much to say and we just don't know how to manage it all. I hope that we can get it more in order because I feel like we can have a really good presentation. I am excited for the Holiday break, though!
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happy thanksgiving!Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We hope that everybody is doing well over this holiday and is able to spend time with their loved ones. This Thanksgiving, we have some things we need to get done.
Mattie: Over the break, I will be going to my grandparents house to eat dinner. I will take some more pictures of the car and try to drive it around a little bit. I'm not exactly sure if I will be able to meet up with Max just considering it's a busy time. We sent the car to an auto repair shop and got the oil changed. It wasn't absolutely urgent and necessary, but we knew it would be soon. I will post any content that I gather as soon as I can to our photo gallery. I honestly don't know if I can post a video on here, but I will figure that out soon. Max: I also do not know if I will be able to meet up for this photo session thing Mattie is doing. I have to eat with my family and spend time with them all day, so it won't be easy to try to find time to meet up. I'm glad we were able to get the oil changed. I am also interested in seeing how Mattie's driving experience goes. I hope she doesn't crash! a different type of blog postWe are stumped. We don't really know what else to do. We know what we can't do. The reports with the seats and paint--we know that has to wait. But what now? We think the oil could be changed, so we're going to try to look into that. Other than that, we don't really know what to talk about that involves the actual car. However, while working on the project and trying to find time to do things and manage our time-- we keep coming onto the topic of mental health. So we decided why not randomly dedicate a blog post to it.
Mattie: Me and Max have been talking about managing school, home life, and sports. We obviously know we have to get this project done, so we talk about planning times to work on it. A lot of times we just start having a conversation about school in general and it always leads to a mental health talk. I personally am big on mental health so I think it would be cool to take a break from all things Bronco, and just be real. Max: I feel like mental health is something that really affects a lot of people even if they don't know it. Anxiety and Depression are two of the biggest ones that people may not realize they are being affected by. Anxiety an be an every day thing. Fore example, about a test or talking to a teacher about a serious topic or sports practice. Don't be shy to talk about it either. Mental health is a big thing that can really damage a person and I encourage everyone who dealt with it to go to a mental health specialist or a therapist. Mattie: I completely agree with all of that. I started therapy back in the spring, and it was such a positive thing. I haven't been able to go since August due to my school schedule, but I genuinely need to. I often find myself slipping behind with all kinds of things and I think its important to fix this before I fall in a sort of hole. As Max said, it is very important to seek the help you need when you need it. I encourage everybody to do so. These past few weeks have not been the best, but I try to stay motivated it. What helps me the most is talking to my friends and being that I am not the only one struggling! We hope that everyone is doing well and is finding ways to manage their stress! a recapRecently, we read over our past blogs. We realized we have some commonly asked questions we want to answer and we want to give a summary on everything we've done just to keep everybody on the same page. We also don't want anybody to have missed any important information.
Mattie: I realized that we have never really talked about the history of this car. Not even going back to 1987, but where we even got this car and when. My grandpa bought the Bronco in 2019 from one of his good friends named Joe Norman. He lives in Yadkin County. When he bought it, the transmission was bad. It had rusted parts, broken parts, and some things about it were just too worn down. He couldn't get it straight up replaced because nobody really sells the exact type it needs. This was just an age issue. He was able to get the transmission rebuilt. He also had to get the battery replaced. The motor was just in need of a little tuning. We still know there is a problem with the motor staying on. As I said in the last blog post, we are looking into that now. The thing that took the most time was getting the transmission rebuilt. It also costed the most. Max: NNow let's talk about the actual history of the Bronco. The 1987 Ford Bronco was the first Bronco of the 4th generation series. The 4th generation lasted 1987-1991. The 87' model has automatic windows, an automatic gear shift, four-wheel drive option, and many more nice technology features for its time. We aren't exactly sure how much the car would have costed when it came out. We've looked at a few different websites and have seen some different statistics. It seems to come around $17,000. The 2021 4-door Ford Bronco starts at around $35,000. The price change is very apparent. There are all kinds of crazy features and different versions of the Bronco as well. These things add up the price! We hope to get as much done as we can in the upcoming weeks. seats, stopping, and stink bugs.We got word back on the seats. We have good news and bad news. Let's talk about it.
Mattie: As we all know, the Corona virus has caused many things to be on back order. I found a date for the seats. As we mentioned in the last blog, we can't get them recovered until the week after Christmas. We finally found a guy who can get us help in getting it done. It's going to cost $150 per seat. This leads us to $300 total. This is one of the last physical things we have to do. (other than the paint job that we unfortunately will not be able to complete until next year). While working on the car over the weekend, I did happen to notice that the car is in need of a good cleaning! There was a real nice dead stinkbug on the seat. I took a picture of it. Max: We thought we had most things mechanically fixed. We took a car for a drive through Mattie's grandparents field and in around a church parking lot near their house. The Bronco was having trouble accelerating on time and the engine was being a little funny. The car goes the correct speed and it brakes quite well. It's not that the gas doesn't go, but when you push on it--it takes a second to actually move. Literally just a second, but it can be tricky when having to pull onto a road with moving traffic. The engine also cut off 3 times randomly. We weren't really moving. One time, I had come to a stop and was about to put the car into reverse. But it just turned off. The engine would cut off and the car would slowly stop moving. Mattie: So what do we do next? We don't exactly know. We're going to vacuum and clean the car this weekend. Just doing the things we know how to do and we know we have to do. I'll have to talk with my grandparents about seeing if we can send the car into another place and tell them about our two specific issues. what's next?The final major thing we have to do is get the seats replaced. We are currently looking for a place that could give us an estimate on how much this will cost and how long it will take.
Max: I don't think we should replace the seats entirely, there's nothing mechanically wrong with them. As far as how they move and the supporting bars underneath, they are fine. There are just some holes in them. I'm worried about when we will be to purchase new seat covers though. The shipping rates are crazy right now. Mattie: After looking into it, I agree with Max. I think we should just get new seat covers. It would cost a lot of money to get entirely new seats. I am excited though. We are super close to getting done. I still wish we would be able to get a new paint job. I still think we plan to, it just won't be in the time of the project due date. With that said, we will still post photos of the Bronco when it gets its new paint job, you will just have to be sure to come back and look for it! getting to workSo much has happened! We got to action on the car and things are going along well. The report from the auto shop came back better than we expected! There weren't that many major issues. Just some things that come along with age of the car and a lot of cosmetic things to do.
Mattie: On Friday, me and Max went to my grandparents house to take pictures of the car. They can be found on the front page of our website. The first three are the ones we took on Friday. In the picture is my grandpa washing the tires. The tires are not in great condition, but the mechanics said that it isn't urgent that they get replaced. However, we might need a brake replacement. Max: We looked into getting a paint job for the car. A full redo on the paint is going to cost quite a bit of money. The estimate was around $3000. After taking this into consideration, we know that repainting is not urgent. We plan to repaint the car soon, but it may not be in the 12 week span of this project. This weekend, we plan to fix the air conditioning. We aren't exactly sure what the problem is, but we are going to look into it with help of Mattie's dad who is an A/C and heating tech. the plan is setIt's week four of genius hour! Since last week we have gathered more and more information on the car. The car has been sitting at Mattie's grandparents house for a while now, but where did it come from?
Mattie: I honestly thought it came from an auction. My grandfather is an auctioneer so I thought maybe he saw it at one that he was doing and decided to get it. While doing research on the cars background, I asked my grandparents; "Wait. Where exactly did you get this thing?" They told me one of their friends buys old cars and sells them to people. My grandpa has bought a lot of cars from this guy. He also got an old Ford Taurus from him. He currently owns this too. It is in good condition and it's driveable. We have also made plans on when and how to get this car into shape. Max: We set up a date for the car to get inspected. It went in yesterday. We sent it to a place local to Mattie's grandparents house, so that it would be near. It was kind of difficult to find somebody. A lot of places said they weren't really sure if they would have the parts and tools to inspect it. We made note that we didn't want anything major to be fixed because we want to do it. We are hoping that the report can come back today. Our prediction is that the biggest problem will be things like brake fluid, oil, tires, and maybe some other cosmetic aspects. On Friday, we will be going to take all the before pictures and hopefully start action! some Ford knowledge...Its week 3! We haven't done much to the car itself yet, but we are still in the planning process. We are looking for a time to get the car inspected. Once this happens, we can really get going on actually fixing the car.
Mattie: The car is a 1987 Ford Bronco. My family is a big fan of Ford, and mostly all of them have had/currently have a ford product. My aunt has a Mustang & Ford Edge. She's never had any car other than a Mustang--until she added the edge. My brother also drives a Mustang. My mom has had 2 Mustangs. My dad drove a Mustang. My grandpa (who owns the Bronco) has 2 Ford trucks. He also owns a Ford Thunderbird. And my other grandpa has a Ford truck. We personally just find them a pretty good car brand. I personally love the Ford Mustangs and after starting this project, I've gained an interest in the modern Bronco. Me and Max think it will be a good idea to do a little research on the brand. Max: In 1896, Henry Ford built his first automobile, which he called a quadricycle. His initial foray into automobile manufacturing was the Detroit Automobile Company, founded in 1899. The company foundered, and in 1901 was reorganized as the Henry Ford Company. In 1917, Ford Motor Company produced its first truck. In 1922, Ford purchased Lincoln from Henry Leland, his former business associate from the Detroit Automobile Company. In 1954, Ford introduced the Thunderbird. It was convertible. Ford continues to grow today and is a successful company. where are we going to start?We haven't actually done much progress over the first week. We have discussed our goals, but we don't exactly know where to start. Some of the things we want to get done are:
Mattie: We know, realistically, we aren't going to be able to get all of this done. We wish we could, though. I think the best place to get started will be with getting the car inspected. I went to my grandparents house over the weekend and just kind of looked at the car. I didn't really go into much detail with it. My grandpa told me that the car turns on, but it won't accelerate. He hopped in and showed me. It moved like a slug. Hardly went far. Was super slow. Hopefully, if we get the car inspected, we can figure out where this issue is coming from. Max: I agree. I think it'll be good to have some professionals look at the car. We obviously want to do as much as we can ourselves, but we are not trained to give the car a proper diagnosis. I don't think it would be good to risk the mechanical function of the car by trying to guess what's wrong on our own. We hope to set a date for the car to go in and get looked at. I think there might be something wrong with the fuel system. Based on what Mattie says happened, that's what I think is wrong. We will see! how do you even drive...lolThis is our first blog post for our Genius Hour project! We have a lot to discuss on this post and we are super excited to get started with the process!
Max: I think this will be a good project for me and Mattie to do. We had a lot of different ideas. We thought about writing some sort of story, painting, cooking, a podcast, and a few other things. We settled on the idea of fixing up a Ford Bronco because we think it'll be very different from everybody else. I think it'll take a lot of effort, but it'll be worth it. Mattie told me her grandpa "had this car he's trying to get fixed up". So I was like "Alright, what is it?". And then she told me "Well this things from 1987 I think.". I immediately knew this would be a hard task, but I know we can do it. I also find it funny that Mattie has no idea what driving even is. Mattie: I like that everybody assumes I don't know how to drive just because I haven't even started drivers ed. I swear I can actually drive, I'm just not at the age where it's legal. I wish I was. I personally enjoy driving. I'm really excited to do this project. I don't know anything about a cars mechanical composition, so I think this will be a big learning experience. It will also help for the day that I actually can drive. If something goes wrong, maybe I will know how to fix it on the spot. |
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