Internal Combustion Engine

Vroom. Rumble. Pop. Hello there. I am the Internal Combustion Engine. Before I came along, the world was much quieter, but also much slower. If you wanted to go somewhere far away, you would hear the clippity-clop of a horse's hooves pulling a wagon. Horses are strong, but they get tired and need to rest and eat. People wanted to explore, to visit family in the next town, and to see new places. But it took such a long, long time. They dreamed of a way to travel farther and faster, without needing to stop for a nap or a snack of hay. They needed a new kind of power, a new kind of heart to make things go. That’s when clever people started thinking about me.

It took a lot of bright ideas to bring me to life. A man named Étienne Lenoir made an early version of me way back in the year 1860. It was a good start, but I wasn't quite strong enough yet. Then, in the year 1876, another inventor named Nikolaus Otto had a brilliant idea that gave me my real power. He created my fiery heart, which works in a special rhythm, like a little dance. It’s called the four-stroke cycle, and it goes like this: 'suck, squeeze, bang, blow.'. First, I take a little sip of air and a tiny bit of fuel. That’s the 'suck'. Then, a part inside me called a piston squeezes that air and fuel together really, really tight. That’s the 'squeeze'. Next comes the fun part. A tiny spark makes a 'BANG.'. It’s like a mini firecracker going off inside me. This little explosion pushes the piston down with a whole lot of force. Finally, I let out a puff of smoke. That’s the 'blow'. I do this dance over and over again, very fast—suck, squeeze, bang, blow.—and all those little bangs add up to create a big, rumbling power that can turn wheels and make things move.

My big moment finally came in the year 1886. An inventor named Karl Benz thought I was just what he needed. He built a special carriage with three wheels and placed me right inside. He called it the Motorwagen, and it was one of the very first cars. Can you imagine the surprise when people saw it moving all by itself, without a horse. Vroom. I chugged along the road, and a whole new world of travel began. Soon, I wasn't just in cars. I was put into boats to help them zoom across the water and even into the first airplanes to help them soar through the sky. I helped make the big, wide world feel a little smaller because people could visit each other more easily. Even today, I am still hard at work, helping cars, trucks, and buses take people on all sorts of amazing adventures, from a trip to the grocery store to a vacation across the country.