Prosthetic hands inspired by the armored gauntlet of Marvel's Iron Man and designed to be fashioned by 3D printers are now available to children, in lieu of more expensive alternatives which can cost tens of thousands of dollarsand don't look nearly as cool.

Arc reactors (and batteries) not included.

A tinkerer named Pat Starace has released his designs for his "Iron Man Child Prosthetic Hand," 3DPrint.com reported this week. The prosthetic, pictured below, has the familiar gold-and-crimson color scheme favored by Ol' Shellhead, and it's designed with housings for a working gyroscope, magnetometer, accelerometer, and other "cool sensors", as well as a battery housing and room for a low-power Bluetooth chip and charging port.

Iron Man Prosthetic Hand/Credit: Pat Starace R&D

Oh, and the prosthetic also has a "working laser" and "working thruster," according to Starace. Which is to say, the Iron Man prosthetic hand has one row of LEDs along the side which can light up for a cool effect, and a circular array in the palm which imitate the thrusting capabilities of Tony Stark's battle armor.

"The hand is a container for all modern technology," the inventor told 3DPrint.com. "It can incorporate microcontrollers, wireless devices, smart watches, sensors, accelerometers, NFC, RFID, and almost any technology. This hand is configured with an Arduino microcontroller, Low Power Bluetooth, a Lipo battery, a Lipo charger, LEDs, and RGB LEDs. It can also be voice-controlled."

Starace said he modelled the prosthetic using the MAYA software platform for creating 3D printing designs. It takes about 48 hours to print out all of the composite parts for the prosthetic hand using a conventional printer, according to 3DPrint.com.

Meanwhile, in other 3D-printable prosthetic news, another youngster has been outfitted by with a low-cost, printed hand courtesy of the volunteer group e-NABLE. Five-year-old Keith Harris of League City, Tex. recently received a prosthetic hand fashioned by a 3-D printer, CBS Houston reported this week.

Harris, born with an impartially formed hand, wasn't eligible for one of the expensive, conventionally manufactured prosthetic devices which can cost upwards of $40,000 to $50,000, his mother told the local news station. Instead, e-NABLE volunteers printed up a working prosthetic for the cost of about $45 in materials and offered it to the boy for free.

The Texas youngster joins Mason Wilde of Kanas City, who received a 3D-printed prosthetic hand earlier this year, and others around the world in similar circumstances who have been the beneficiaries of advances in additive manufacturing technology.

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