At three years old, Alice has some sweet wheels.
That’s thanks to her dad, Thomas Wadsworth, 40, who spent 18 months and £1,800 turning a secondhand mobility scooter into a miniature VW camper van just for her.
The dove blue van with leather seats and customised external stickers speeds up to eight miles per hour and allows Thomas and Alice to sit inside and zoom around.
Thomas from, Sparkwell Village, Plymouth, said: ‘I wanted something to build that would not cost the earth for my daughter and I to enjoy.
‘Myself and my daughter can fit within the Totrod, which means I can also enjoy the fruits of my creation.
‘This being said two children, or even three can get in, but for safety I can control it wirelessly through a hand controller.
‘Alice loves it.’
The DIY project took a lot of time and hard work, but Alice’s reaction made it all worth it.
‘I took the mobility scooter and literally ripped it to pieces whilst taking photos of the wiring for reference later,’ Thomas explained.
‘I then had to cut the metal frame and shorten it to fit the fibreglass shell nicely.
‘There was a lot of welding involved.
‘The fibreglass shell needed cutting and sanding also to fit.
‘Once the shell was done this was sent off to a local spray shop to be sprayed to one of the original VW split screen van colours, dove blue.
‘The hard work though at this point began as needed to rewire the whole Totrod to allow for programmability.
‘I did this by installing the popular Arduino UNO board. This took the various analog inputs and digitized them to allow for the electric steering and throttle to work, but to also be programmable.
‘Installation of the steering mechanism – a linear actuator – was also being worked on at the same time.
‘This needed an adjustable damping system in place to allow for manual steering too.’
That’s a lot of technical talk, so to put it simply: Thomas earned mega dad points by making his three-year-old daughter her own tiny camper van she can actually drive around in.
All the applause to him.
Have you completed a DIY project you fancy showing off?
Get in touch to tell us all about it by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/10/07/dad-turns-mobility-scooter-into-tiny-camper-van-for-his-three-year-old-daughter-13385085/
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