Students at a Tennessee high school have built a robotic hand for a classmate missing part of his, an act of friendship that he has called life-changing.
At the center of perhaps one of the most heartwarming news stories to come out of the US so far this year is Sergio Peralta, who initially arrived at Hendersonville high school near Nashville this past fall while trying to cover up that his right hand was not fully formed, CBS News reported on Wednesday.
“As I was growing up, like during my first years of school, I had a lot of people asked me what’s wrong with … my hand, lots of people, and I used to just say even in kindergarten, ‘I was born like that,’” the 15-year-old Sergio recalled to the local CBS affiliate WVTF.
Sergio added to CBS: “In the first days of school [at Hendersonville], I honestly felt like hiding my hand – like nobody would ever find out.”
But an engineering teacher at Sergio’s school, Jeff Wilkins, eventually learned of the boy’s right hand and reportedly promised him that his classmates might be able to do him a favor.
Those classmates then spent four weeks designing, 3D printing and sizing a prosthetic hand for Sergio, who also helped. One of the first things for which Sergio used his new prosthetic when it was ready was to catch a ball with his right hand.
Despite growing up without a fully formed right hand, Sergio said he was able to do “almost everything”. But it wasn’t until he got his prosthetic that he could play catch with his right hand, he said.
Hendersonville student Leslie Jaramillio told the local CBS affiliate WVTF that the project embodied the spirit of their school’s engineering class.
“You’re supposed to be engineering, coming up with new ideas, solving issues,” Jaramillo said.
Their principal, Bob Cotter, echoed Leslie’s sentiment in an interview with the BBC. He said Wilkins and his students challenge themselves to turn abstract concepts “into reality”. And, Cotter added, Sergio’s robotic hand “is a testament to the students … who care about each other and the program that Jeff Wilkins has built”.
Sergio told CBS that he never would have expected his classmates’ kindness and creativity “in a million years”.
“I didn’t know them, so I actually got introduced to them by the teacher,” Peralta said to WVTF of the peers who helped him with his prosthetic. “And then that’s what I started working on, and I got to be friends with them.
“Living without a hand for 15 years and they actually offered me two is [something] actually pretty cool. No one has ever offered me this stuff – [it] changed my life.”