Bronx physicist becomes first to receive life-altering, 3D-printed robo-arm

It’s the Hero he deserves.For most of his life, Praveen Gowtham avoided prosthetics.The Bronx physicist, who lost part of his arm at one week old due to a birth defect, found artificial limbs cumbersome, clunky and less mobile than billed.That all changed last month when he became the world’s first person to be outfitted with Open Bionics’ new 3D-printed Hero FLEX robot arm, a cutting-edge attachment for above-elbow amputees.Within an hour of the procedure, the Bronx-based scientist, 43, was accomplishing tasks he rarely did with previous prosthetics — like holding his dog’s leash, or opening drink containers unaided for the first time.“I can hold a bottle and then torque it the other way,” Gowtham told The Post.

“That makes a huge, huge difference, and I’ve already noticed that.”The device can even give someone the finger, revealed Gowtham, who went from wearing prosthetics for at most a half-hour per day to donning this cybernetic enhancement nearly full-time.Released just last month, the Hero FLEX is the first above-elbow socket from Open Bionics, a UK-founded tech firm that has the distinction of producing the world’s first clinically approved 3D-printed bionic prosthesis.The arm employs advanced robotics and AI and syncs with one’s muscle signals, allowing users to use multiple grip patterns and perform a variety of everyday tasks.Like a high-tech Swiss army knife, it can be equipped with activity-specific attachments, too, ranging from gardening tools to a bridge for playing pool, before being swapped back to a bionic hand for regular use.“It’s pretty easy and intuitive to kind of switch between them,” said Gowtham, who originally hails from Morningside Heights near Columbia University.“But I think the real winner is that it’s super lightweight and breathable — that’s the major one.”This comes as 3D tech is revolutionizing medicine by offering patients the chance to recreate body parts that are customized to a patient�...