I am doing a science project comparing an animal cell to a car. Stuck now. Need help please!?

Question

Need to compare the similar parts of the cell to the car. I really am stuck on how the ribosomes, gogli bodies, lysosomes, vacuoles, chromosomes, endoplasmim reticulum, nuclear membrane and cytoplasm compare to a function on the car or how it relates to the car itself.

Answer 1

A cell and a car?  That's a bizarre comparison, but I'll try ...

The outside surface of the car could be the cell membrane, and I would say that the driver who controls the car is the nucleus.  So the space inside the surface of the car, including the trunk and engine, but outside the driver, is the cytoplasm.  The nuclear membrane would be the skin of the driver.  The chromosomes store the knowledge the cell needs, so I would say that the driver's brain - which stores the driver's knowledge - is the analog of the chromosomes.

In a cell, the nucleus sends out instructions in the form of mRNAs to get the cell to do what it is supposed to;  there isn't really any similar pathway in the driver/car system, so that's why I say the analogy is odd.

With that limitation, the pathway of mRNA -> ribosomes -> ER -> golgi  is hard to model, as you say.  Perhaps:

The signals the driver sends are via her hands and feet, so maybe the mRNA is analogous to the driver's appendages.

The foot pedals, k***s, turn signals, steering wheel, etc. 'translate' these signals into actions by the car, so maybe the control surfaces that the driver touches are the ribosomes.

In some cases, ribosomes make a protein that functions directly in the cytosol - maybe the k***s on the climate control panel are these ribosomes, creating a response by changing the physical environment of the cabin.

In other cases, the ribosomes translate their protein into the ER in order to affect something at the surface or outside the cell;  maybe the steering wheel and turn signals are ribosomes like this, and the steering column or wires are the ER.

Sometimes the proteins made in the ER are not modified and are used directly by the cell = the blinking turn signal results from the wires (ER) directly transmitting the signal to the car surface.

Other times, the signal is passed through the golgi and gets altered = maybe the steering column ER passes the steering info to the front axle golgi (1 golgi on each side?), where the steering wheel rotation is modified into a turn of the axle, and then passed on to the wheels at the surface of the cell membrane.

Lysosomes take stuff in from outside the cell and redistribute it - sometimes stuff is broken down in the cell, sometimes it is shipped back to the surface, sometimes it is stored, etc.  Perhaps an analogy would be shopping bags that are placed in the trunk or on the seats = they might contain things that get sent to the nucleus (candy), or stored (maps), or sent to other parts of the car (wiper fluid, oil), or passed back out of the car (groceries, rubbish).

Note that an animal cell does not have vacuoles.

Hope this makes sense and is helpful!