①Nowadays heavy traffic can happen anywhere. People can get very anxious if they are in heavy traffic. For many years people have tried to invent a car that can fly. If a person is driving a flying car, the heavy traffic would be far below him.

② People around the world hope that in the future, flying cars will be useful for short trips like taxis in or out of cities. These cars could save time in emergencies that happen suddenly and help reach places that can’t be reached by road. They also hope to save the space on the ground. Flying cars won’t use runways, because they are able to take off and land by going straight up and straight down.

③Last September, SkyDrive, a Japanese company, showed off its new flying car SD-03. With a pilot on board, the car was flown around for four minutes.

④Flying cars need strong power to fly in the sky freely like the airplanes. SkyDrive designed the SD-03 powered by batteries (电池). There are eight motors (发动机) lifting it straight off the ground. The design also produces less pollution.

⑤Although the SD-03’s test flight was successful, we may not see flying cars in our daily life anytime soon. ▲ Safety is a big problem. What happens when a motor fails? If a flying car is crossing a city, an accident could hurt not just the people in the car but also people on the ground. That’s why the SD-03 has eight motors — some are backups (备用物). Flying cars are also very expensive. The SD-03, for example, is expected to sell for up to $500,000.

⑥Yet people who believe in flying cars point out that cars and airplanes faced lots of challenges at first, too. Over time, many of their biggest problems were solved. Tomohiro Fukuzawa, who leads SkyDrive, hopes that by 2050, people will have been able to fly anywhere inside of Tokyo in ten minutes or less.

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Do you have imagination? Do you like to solve problems? Can you think out of the box? If so, you could be the next great inventor. “But I’m just a kid,” you might say! Don’t worry about a little thing like age. Some of the greatest inventors in the world get their start as kids.

For example, Benjamin Franklin created paddles (桨) for his hands to help him swim faster when he was only 12 years old. His creation led to today’s flippers (橡胶蹼)!

You don’t have to be an adult, a scientist or a genius (天才) to be an inventor. One thing you need is: curiosity and imagination. Kids are known for looking at things in new and unique ways. Sometimes their understanding of things leads to great inventions!

Sometimes inventors come up with completely new things that solve a problem. At other times new inventions are only things that are changed or improved. Then they work better or serve a different purpose.

So what should you do if you have a great idea for an invention? Talk to a friend or family member about it. Ask them to help you create a working model of your idea.

Once you have a working model, you should test it. Sometimes after the test, you may find your idea is not as great as you thought. At other times you realize it is a good idea and your working model can help you work out how to make it better.

If you need some ideas, consider these kids and their inventions:

Frank Epperson invented Popsicles (冰棍) when he was 11. One night he mixed soda powder (苏打粉) and water with a stick. He left it outside all night. The next morning, he found that the stick had frozen (冻结) inside the drink during the cold night.

Chester Greenwood created earmuffs (耳罩) when he was 15. He found his ears got painfully cold when he was skating. He decided to solve the problem. He found a piece of wire (电线), and his grandma helped him pad (用软物填塞) the ends.

At the age of 15, Louis Braille invented the system that allowed blind people to read.

Look! Here comes a cute bus. It looks like a panda with black ears and big eyes. It can carry 22 people and is about 12 meters long. A Chinese company made it. The Smart Panda Bus uses AI technology（科技). It can do a lot of things. The bus can drive by itself without a driver. Don’t worry! It’s very safe. When you get on the bus, you can swipe（刷)your hand. The bus will read it and know who you are. There are also robots(机器人) on the bus. You can talk to them and ask them for help. If there is a thief on the bus, the bus will call the police. People in some cities, such as Changzhou in Jiangsu, Jinan in Shandong and Deyang in Sichuan, can take the bus. Do you want to have a try? Inside the bus, there is a machine. You can buy breakfast and dinner on the bus. This can save you a lot of time.