Robert Downey, Jr. Reprises Tony Stark To Present Young Fan With Bionic Arm

The actor's big screen character creates a powered suit of armor to save his life, and Downey, Jr. had the opportunity to change a seven-year-old fan's life by giving him a new limb almost identical to the one Iron Man wears in the superhero films.

Downey, Jr. took to his Facebook page and posted video footage of himself meeting young fan Alex, who was born with a partially developed right arm. The introduction was made possible by college student Albert Manero, who builds and donates low-cost, 3D-printed bionic limbs to kids around the world through his company Limbitless Solutions.

When "leading bionics expert" Downey, Jr. heard Manero had been seeking help for this particular project, the actor got in touch with him, and in the footage, Downey, Jr. opens two cases, both marked with logos from Iron Man's fictional company "Stark Industries" - one featured a prop arm for Downey, Jr. to wear and the other was a "bionic limb" for the youngster.

As Downey, Jr. and Alex tried out their bionic limbs, the actor said, "I'm having a technical glitch... Half the time I design one of these, it ends up breaking on me. But what I do is I keep working on it, kinda like how you're working on it with Albert."

Downey, Jr. later added, "Albert has made it so affordable, I'm probably gonna start farming out a lot of my tech work to Albert, too. I feel like he could cut the price point down on one of my suits, which I guess right now is like, I don't know, a billion and a half dollars?"

Although Alex's bionic arm was donated, his limb cost less than $350 (£218) in materials.