全帆课程总监 帕特Starace picks up the box that’s been resting inconspicuously on the ground beside him.

我们坐在3B的大厅里, chatting about his 20 plus years spent working in the advertising and motion picture industries, 在那里他创建了模型, 数字动画, 对数十家公司的影响，包括 万事达卡, 纳贝斯克, 美国航空公司. 1979年，我还是个年轻的模型师, Pat worked on a revamp of the opening sequence for CBS’s flagship news magazine 60分钟. The stopwatch used in that sequence now resides in the Smithsonian Institution’s popular culture collection.

“这是我非常自豪的事情,帕特说。, 把手伸到盒子深处取出什么东西.

Considering his resume, one expects him to present something precious, or iconic. Instead, he draws out an ordinary, oblong piece of plaster criss crossed with penciled in grid lines. “这是泰勒最初的演员阵容，”他说.

他又把手伸进盒子里, pulls out a startlingly detailed prosthetic hand modeled after Iron Man’s glove. “这就是泰勒现在拥有的东西.”

帕特在用自己的才能回馈社会方面有着悠久的历史, 他的大部分努力都是为了帮助有需要的孩子. 所以当一个朋友送他一台3D打印机时, he knew he wanted to use it to do something that would have a huge impact on a child’s life. 经过一些初步的研究, he decided to create an artificial limb that challenged the rules of traditional prosthetic design.

“As long as it’s functional, it doesn’t even have to look like a human hand,” he says. “In Tyler’s case, I’m not trying to make this prosthetic hand grab things as well as the other hand. 相反，我想给它加载蓝牙等功能. 我们处在数字时代. My goal was to make a hand that could do things his other hand can’t.”

After modeling the hand in Maya and Softworks, Pat set to work printing. It was a process that proved to be more difficult than he originally anticipated. The sheer volume of parts pushed his printer to the limit— he’d run a 20 hour print only to have the process fail in hour 19. At one point, the printer’s controller got so hot that it caught on fire.

“这是一种毅力。. 我知道我必须继续解决这些问题. Despite the challenges, watching the hand take shape was an incredible experience,” he says.

Luckily, Pat was able to replace the burned out controller and finish the job. After all of the pieces were printed, it was time to work in the electrical components of the hand. 正如他的设想，帕特给这只手装上了各种特征.

手腕向前弯曲的手露出一对 低二极管红外激光器. 磁铁 in the middle and ring fingers allow the wearer to easily pick up metallic objects, while a 电容式触控笔 in the index finger facilitates interaction with touchscreen devices. 帕特甚至还给了我一个 万能遥控器 that allows the wearer to turn any television on and off and scroll through channels.

A specially designed mobile app uses low power Bluetooth to connect the hand to any mobile phone, allowing the wearer to exercise their hand and wrist in a way that feels more like a game as opposed to tedious physical therapy. The app also comes equipped with an alert function that causes the hand to vibrate when activated, an especially useful feature for parents looking to get their child’s attention. Pat also wanted to share his love of programming with the recipient of the hand, so he included an Arduino电路板 佩戴者可以在手腕上学习编程.

As the hand continued to come together, word of what Pat was doing was spreading. His story was picked up by several national media markets, including Gizmodo, Mashable, 华盛顿邮报. Applications started pouring in from all over the country from parents of kids who needed a hand.

“反响非常热烈,帕特说。, who only had the resources to create a single hand and a reference prototype. “我只是一个人，我在过滤所有这些回应. 最后，我找到了泰勒，他住在德克萨斯州的一个小镇上. 我说的小，是指2200人. 他们连交通灯都没有.”

1月3日, 泰勒的八岁生日, Pat and a friend made the drive from Florida to Texas to deliver the hand in person. Pat says he spent much of the 13 hour drive soldering the final electrical components. “I had this picture in my head of a little kid holding up their hand and the thruster lights in the palm lighting up. 那些灯必须工作. 如果他们不这样做，整件事就会失败.”

回到3B大厅, Pat holds the prototype hand as if it were something more precious than anything you could find in a museum. 他在手腕处向后弯曲手, 在手掌上点亮一圈耀眼的白色LED灯. 他笑了.

“That goes down as one of the most awesome days of my life— when Tyler held up his hand and it lit up.”

Pat says he hopes the hand helps people see past Tyler’s disability and focus on what a remarkable kid he is.

“I took all my skills, everything I do, put them to use on this project. 我认为发生了什么, 我希望发生的事, 我们能扭转局面吗, 残疾在哪里变成了能力.”

想要近距离观察钢铁侠的手，请点击 帕特的网站.