To answer your questions:
I'm sorry you are feeling a bit confused. But you have to realize, as you go out into the "real world" there are going to be tons of things that don't make sense the instant you see them. The important thing is to not give up. In general with learning, sometimes you have to read things over and over again until finally it clicks (seriously, you might need to read something 10 times until you get it or more!). Other times when you are reading something, you'll look up one word because you don't understand it, only to find that you also have to look up the words in the definition, until finally you see words that make sense. It's perfectly normal to not understand something when you haven't seen it before! But since you are in high school, you are expected to do a more advanced project, and that means you are going to have to put in some effort into studying the material until you get it. If you haven't taken many chemistry classes, then some of the vocabulary will be foreign to you and the reactions will seem difficult, but if you keep at it and keep looking up what words mean and take the reactions step by step, you WILL get it eventually. So don't give up the instant something is confusing. It is NORMAL to not understand everything
. Even after taking 2 high school chemistry classes and 2 college classes, I didn't completely understand the transesterification reaction for biodiesel until going over it a few times, and talking to my professor.
As for transforming corn to ethanol, I'll try to explain in simpler terms.
So, plants make their own food (glucose, a sugar and a solid) using the energy of the sun, carbon dioxide (CO2), and water (photosynthesis). So, you essentially grind the corn up. The bacteria eat the glucose (sugar) in the corn. Glucose has six carbon atoms. During this fermentation process, the bacteria break the glucose down into carbon dioxide (1 carbon) and ethanol (2 carbons), but you get two of each. So you started with 6 carbon atoms in glucose, and 6 came out, because 2 molecules of ethanol and 2 molecules of carbon dioxide were formed. Ethanol at room temperature is a liquid. Glucose at room temperature is a solid. It just so happens that ethanol is a liquid, glucose is a solid, and carbon dioxide is a gas at room temperature. A chemical's melting/freezing/boiling temperature has to do with the attraction between each molecule and the bonds between atoms. So glucose has a much higher melting temperature than ethanol. Since ethanol is a different molecule than glucose, the energy needed to break or form bonds is different, too, and that affects its properties. Also keep in mind that after each step (grinding the corn, adding the bacteria,etc) the people who make ethanol would purify everything, meaning they would separate out the rest of the corn that was ground up from the ethanol and any other byproducts.
Here's the overall reaction:
C6H12O6 (Glucose - solid) → 2 C2H5OH (ethanol - liquid) + 2 CO2 (carbon dioxide - gas)
Then, when you put the ethanol in your car, the ethanol is broken down into carbon dioxide and water:
C2H5OH (ethanol - liquid) + 3 O2 (oxygen - gas) → 2 CO2 (carbon dioxide -gas) + 3 H2O (liquid)
Note how the number of atoms balances (they are the same on each side of the equation).
You don't have to do the entire process as your project. You could choose one part and only do that. For example, if you decided to go with fermentation of ethanol, you could only focus on the fermentation part. You could start with some glucose (a type of sugar) and then the bacteria, and then you would make ethanol and byproducts. So then you wouldn't need to worry about grinding corn, etc.
As for making biodiesel from oils, it actually isn't that bad compared to other advanced projects you could do. I did it as a project in my college lab class and the method to make it is pretty simple, so you would have no problem doing it as an advanced science project. The materials you would need are:
-Heater/stirrer hot plate (with a bar magnet to act as a stirrer, or if you don't have access could just use a stove and stir regularly with an egg beater or something)
-condenser (this is the hardest thing to get, you might be able to make one with water, ice and a bit of engineering)
-separator flask (or you could use a funnel with a stopper or even a water bottle)
-Methanol, KOH (could get from high school or order)
-Beakers and flasks
-Vegetable oils (soybean, sunflower, corn, etc. almost anything that is a plant and an oil should work)
That equipment is very basic and you would hopefully be able to borrow it from your high school, or make something that would do the job at home.
In my original post I referred to an old thread about biodiesel, here it is again:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... =28&t=5312. In that thread I list some papers you might read if you are interested in doing this project. It would help you develop a procedure because you will see what others have done. Also look at my other posts again because I listed some websites that had pretty detailed instructions on what to do for both making ethanol and biodiesel. There are also tons of other websites out there if something is unclear, just type "how to make ___ (biodiesel, ethanol, etc)" in Google and tons of things pop right up. Remember, you won't understand much the first time you see it. Don't let it discourage you. Just keep reading things and look up the things you don't understand and you will get there eventually.
When you read scientific papers, here are some pages that have some tips on how to read and how to find scientific papers. You might find them helpful as you do research no matter what topic you pick:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... aper.shtml
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... pers.shtml
Good luck and let us know if you have any more questions!
I also need information! 
