Poland Syndrome, a rare congenital disease, has left Hailey with an underdeveloped right pectoral muscle and deformity in her right hand, making it extremely hard for her to grip things. Her hand fits snugly inside of the Flexy-Hand and when she moves her wrist, durable fishing line connecting the 3d printed fingers to her wrist will cause the fingers to open and close.

Ahead of Monday’s Oakland Athletics-Baltimore Orioles game at Camden Yards, the crowd got to witness some serious inspiration as 5-year old Hailey Dawson threw the first pitch.

Hailey Dawson’s first pitch to her favorite player, complete with fist bump and a hug. After hearing about the Robohand and how 3D printers were creating low cost prosthetics, Hailey’s mother Yong Dawson took a chance and contacted a professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) to see if he could help. She has a pinky, thumb and palm – but no fingers. The entire creation of her hand – initiated by Hailey’s mom and led by two faculty members at UNLV with the help of four students – has been documented in detail by UNLV, so read that if you’re interested in the engineering side of this story.

And Orioles fans got to see her use it to throw out a very special ceremonial first pitch on Monday night.

Hailey calls it her “special hand”.

Yong Dawson also got a personal call from Orioles executive vice president John Angelos.

As for Hailey, she just wants to play baseball, and the little star certainly won a lot of fans with her curtain-raiser.

Like something in a sci-fi movie, but Hailey’s last name isn’t Skywalker: She’s the real deal.

That’s all changed now, thanks to engineering students at UNLV who used a 3-D printer to make a prosthetic hand for Hailey that’s the fraction of the cost of a traditional prosthetic.

This is just so cool on so many levels.