lucknow until about a year back ramendra singh senger of unnao was dependent on his helper for every little physical movement his upper limbs had been amputated after an accident but now things are looking up for him for he can now moves about on his scooter he has malvika tiwari to thank for that she is a budding young scientist of the city who has invented the footoperated vehicle autogear only for persons whose upper extremities are challenged assuming that the autogeared vehicle was beyond the range of all she is working on a gearoperated model of the vehicle the design for this new device is ready i am working on the making of the model nowsaid malvika explaining the structure of the gear model of the device she said like the autogeared model this device will have two parts the support and the main device the support comprises extra tyres on each side and a back bracket to support the person while driving the main device is an attachment which can be fitted to the geared scooterscomparing the driving mechanism of her device with that of the car she said that the only difference between the geared and autogeared versions was the presence of a system for changing the gears a footboard which contains an accelerator and a brake to control the speed of the vehicle would be common to both the board also contains push buttons for indicators dipper and headlight switch the start button is at the kneelevel so that the person can start the vehicle on his own the other side has a hornexplained a beaming malvikashe was inspired by her father kali vinod tiwari who himself is a severely disabled person he has won a national award for designing a scooter for people whose lower extremities are challenged she also draws strength from her mother rama tiwari who teaches mentally challenged children the idea of making autogeared vehicles struck her when she was in class viii i used to visit programmes workshops and exhibitions where i found that a number of modes of transport were available for persons with lower limb disability but there was practically nothing for persons who did not have hands it was then that i thought of doing something about the samesaid malvikaas part of her endeavour she met about 50 persons with disability in the upper limbs and asked them to visualise a vehicle for themselves the device was ready after a sixmonth long exercise based on unstructured survey the first one to testride this vehicle was sengersaid the small wonder who has just cleared her class x with 85 per cent marks she was recently awarded the third prize in the international intelisefaffiliated science fair besides she has also bagged the national science talent and discovery fair award in 2004 she has done what i could not even think of her device is being successfully used by more than four persons in kanpur itselfsaid