NUV students designed HANDICA150 for the physically challenged people

Four students of Navrachana University (NUV) Vadodara came with a idea and designed a four wheeler vehicle for the physically challenged people.

The students used a second hand two wheeler engine in designing the vehicle and also gave a unified hand lever which worked as a gear, clutch and brake.

Students of Final Year B Tech Program, from School of Science and Engineering, Navrachana University have designed and developed “Handica150”, a vehicle for physically challenged people.

The work was a part of their final year project and now they are in process to launch it commercially. Dr Amarish Badgujar, faculty of Mechanical Engineering Program guided the students to design the innovative vehicle for the people with special needs.

Harshil Shah, Sunil Varia, Parth Pandya and Rahul Hirani worked together for six months, to design a 150cc petrol engine, hand operated or foot operated vehicle. Handica150 has a gear box with reverse, forward and neutral gear mechanism and has a disc brake for safety. It has 1.5ltr petrol capacity, can reach maximum speed of 35Km/hour with an average of 29.2Km per litre.

"We used the second hand two wheeler engine and the disc brake in our vehicle and the innovation is that we give a unified lever for the driver to use clutch, accelerator and brake. We have the limitations that the physically challenged person has atleast one leg or one hand to operate. However we can improve it later by giving the steering wheel next to the lever so that the person can drive the vehicle if he don't have both the hands," said Harshil Shah.

The vehicle has been tested on normal as well as slopes (over-bridge) to check the feasibility and comfort of physically challenged person. It can carry 2 persons easily with maximum payload of 500kg. The total manufacturing cost incurred in developing the Handica150 was approx Rs.70000/-.

"We are now working on to make it a hybrid car which can run both on petrol and battery. For a hybrid model we need differential and we are searching for the financiers as it costs around 1 lakh. Secondly we are planning to install a solar panel which can give supply to the battery. We want to give the physically challenged person the option to drive the car from one place to another and also do their routine work," said Shah.