I want to ride my bicycle: Girl born with half an arm has special bike designed by schoolchildren

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

Happy days: Brave Sophie Smith is now able to ride her bike more comfortably after local children built a special handlebar extension for her to use

A brave little girl born with only one fully formed arm is able to ride her bike after children built a special extension for her handlebar as part of a school project.

Fun-loving Sophie Smith, two, struggled to balance on her pink and white cycle because she was born with half a right arm.

But after hearing of Sophie's troubles school pupils designed an extension that allows her to rest the end of her arm on the handlebar, giving her much better control.


Help: Year 10 engineering pupils at Testwood Sports College created the special extension as part of a class project


Now the toddler is able to effortlessly dash about on the two-wheel bike.

The school's head of technology set the project to the Year 10 engineering pupils, aged 14 and 15, after talking to Sophie's grandmother, Pat, who works at the school.

Pat said Sophie had struggled during a sponsored ride because of her arm.


Overjoyed: A clearly delighted Sophie shows off how she is able to ride her bike more easily now


'She's a very active child and doesn't want her condition to hold her back. Sophie loves the bike and she's using it at home now.' Head of technology Geoff Powell said: 'My colleague was chatting to Pat about what we would do with our engineers and she mentioned that Sophie only has half an arm and was having difficulty on her two-wheeler.

source: dailymail