Story By: Lee Bullen,Sub Editor: Joseph Golder,Agency: Central European News
Kindhearted science students have spent two years building a specialised racing car from scratch for a 10-year-old boy with muscular dystrophy who always dreamed of racing rather than watching from the sidelines.
The incredible achievement, at a reported cost of two years’ hard work and 80,000 PLN (15,820 GBP), was carried out by students of four science clubs at the Warsaw University of Technology (PW) in the central Polish capital Warsaw.
Little Maks, who often visited the racetracks with his family but could only look on from the sidelines due to his disability, was overwhelmed when the boffin students presented him with his specially-built 30kph (19mph) ‘e-MaksPower’ racing car after two years constructing it.
The kindhearted students promised Maks they would build the racing car for him back in 2017 when the youngster went to a motor fair where the teens were showing off some of their designs.
According to local media, the unnamed students belong to four science clubs in the university. ‘ADekk’ specialised in building go-karts, ‘SKAP’ was responsible for vehicle aerodynamics, ‘KNR’ handled the robotics and they were joined by science students from the ‘Smart City PW’ club.
The team looked for racing cars and go-karts for disabled children with Maks’ capabilities, but found nothing suitable online.
Therefore, they decided to start from scratch and first learned about the boy’s movements and physical limits.
On their fundraiser website ‘polakpotrafi.pl’, the students explained: “It turned out that the first driver who will test the vehicle can’t move his wrist or elbow, as we assumed at the beginning, but he can use his fingers and arm.
“That means that the bar was lifted even higher. However, it didn’t discourage us, on the contrary, it motivated us even more to work on every detail of the project.”
Team leader Krawczuk vel Walczuk said: “It is an electric car controlled by a joystick.”
“The only output signal from the driver is through the joystick because Maks only moves his wrist.”
According to local media, the youngster managed to complete a few test laps around the university hall and his dad Michal has promised they will get his spanking new race car on the track as soon as possible.
He said: “Wherever they’ll let us in, Maks will be driving there!”
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