MakerFaire Rome 2016 – European Edition

2016-11-10 | By Maker.io Staff

Circuit Playground

DigiKey was one of the proud sponsoring partners of MakerFaire Rome 2016, in its 4th year. The MakerFaire Rome is the European Edition of the MakerFaire, organised by Innova Camera (An agency of Rome's Chamber of Commerce). The original idea of bringing the MakerFaire to Rome was to bring innovation and inspiration to individuals and makers alike, integrating education and entrepreneurship into the Maker movements genetic identification. Italy is already notably on the map in the Maker movement with Arduino being designed and manufactured in northern Italy for the whole of Europe.

Maker Faire Rome came to the city in 2013 attracting a number of makers giving live performances, panels, workshops, seminars, conferences all to inspire both children and adults of all ages to get involved of hundreds of fun and educational actives and demonstrations. This year MakerFaire Rome at Fiera di Roma, attracted more than 120,000 people through its doors in a new and impressive venue after outgrowing the pervious one at the local University.

You are Here

This year the event was divided into 6 key categories of all things Make and were housed in their own gigantic arenas filled to the brim with maker activities and exhibition stands:

• Fabrication – 3D Printing, Craft, Furniture, New Manufacturing and Recycling
• Life – Agriculture, Animals, Body, Energy, Food, Health and Human Body
• Move – Bikes, Drones, Mobility, Robots, Rockets, Sport and Water
• Interaction – Art, Audio, Electronics, Games, Home Automation, Science and Virtual Reality
• Young Makers – Education, Kids, Schools and Young Makers
• Circuitry – Conference, Light & Darkness and Security

MakerFaire Rome Maker Map

House of Drones

This area was dedicated to everything coming from the world of drone technology, this year alone has seen a massive interested in drones form the maker movement and as such had its own dedicated area in the "Move" building in Pavilion 5. The large area of 800m2 enclosed space was the site for the exhibiters on the day and monitored by TIM FPV Racing Club. The association of drone racing pilots held a number of impressive demonstrations of acrobatic flight with their own home-built drones, including being driven by first person camera view from VR goggles.

House of Drones

One of the highlights of the house of drones was the "Battle of the Drones" which each person gave chase to topple the other persons drone by bashing into one another, it was the highly skilled pilots that gave it the great entertainment that it was.

Not only was the drone's arena for the adult's makers but in Pavilion 9 in the children’s area there was also a mini-aviary too, so children can discover everything regarding the world of drones and could even have a go at trying to pilot them.

Maker.io

At the MakerFaire in Pavilion 7, DigiKey was present for the first time at this event, showcasing some cool projects and showing off the popular Adafruit Circuit Playground board. There was even a gigantic Circuit Playground on show, highlighting its vast array of features such as capacitive touch, sound, light, temperature display on bright RGB panel matrix.

DigiKey Stand

On the DigiKey stand, there was a number of highly skilled staff from DigiKey across the global business talking to makers about their needs and how DigiKey can be a part of their projects in terms of supply chain, tools and resources such as EDA tools, the Article library and many more. Makers could also listen to the Maker-to-Market series of videos from Ladyada at Adafruit, who talked about the process of concept to end support for the Circuit Playground.

Giant Adafruit Circuit Playground

DigiKey also sponsored the "Start-up Contest" for the best innovative idea in IoT technology, which was won by "GlareSmile" a unique toothbrush that can clean your teeth in just 10 seconds. The prize of 75,000 Euro's was presented to the winners Niccolo Cerizza and Aldo Daniele Dominici by DigiKey's very own Vincenzo Purgatorio, Director of sales in Southern Europe and North Africa.

DigiKey presenting the winner’s prize of 75,000 Euro’s

GlareSmile uses three brushes that rotate at a speed of 4 revolutions per second and sliding along the dental arch allow removal of plaque in 10 seconds + an extreme ease of use, also completed by an app with which to control your own oral hygiene. It uses fully recyclable materials and is a very innovative toothbrush! It's no coincidence that the crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter site has already received enormous interest.

100k Rome Prize

This year's edition of the MakerFaire Rome featured projects submitted through the "Call for Makers", all were submitted for the grand prize of 100,000 Euro's for the "best maker project with the highest social impact".

A jury composed of 3 members, such as prof. Neil Gershenfeld from M.I.T, Bruce Sterling – author and futurologist, and Simona Maschi from the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design. There were 10 finalists selected among which only one was picked as the winner and announced at the Maker Faire Rome 2016. The evaluation criteria were divided into two criteria's:

• The social impact of the proposed idea
• The economic sustainability of the project

The winner was announced on the Saturday 15th on day 2 of the MakerFaire Rome after a number of exciting pitches to the audience and judges. The winner was LIMIX Srl, who created a "Talking Hands" device that could dramatically increase the quality of life for deaf people, who are generally often excluded from social life due to the disability.

Talking Hands, is a glove that can translate sign language into voice. It records the hand movements and translates them and transfers the signal to a smart phone, where it gets interpreted into a voice.

Call for Makers Winners 2016

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