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Maker Faire Rome: Programme and Contents

By on September 20, 2018
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The 6th edition of “Maker Faire Rome” will kick off with the Educational Day.
On Friday 12 October, from 9:00 to 13:00, the traditional morning dedicated to visiting school students (25,000 students attended last year) will take place before the event opens to the public, allowing students to see the inventions created by the makers from close-up. “Maker Faire Rome – The European Edition” will be open to the public from Friday afternoon at 14:00 until Sunday 14 October. The Opening Conference, presented by Riccardo Luna, will also be held on Friday, at 10:30, and will be broadcast in live streaming.

Evolution from industry and business 4.0 does not only create a significant expansion of the framework of businesses, but makes the need for an evolution of skills at all levels of businesses, from management to production operators, the focal point of discussion. This will be discussed in the meeting “Industry and Business 4.0, the revolution of skills”, moderated by Franco Canna, director of the web magazine Innovation Post. During the course of the two half-days, the afternoon of Friday, October 12 and Saturday, October 13, representatives of institutions, universities and businesses will take turns on stage to discuss the policies and technologies capable of favoring the digital transformation of manufacturing and other businesses. In the pavilion dedicated to the circular economy, the Eni display area will host an intense schedule of single topic talks and three round tables. The first, on Friday 12 at 15:00, will be on the topic of The major gamble of the circular economy, in which the main actors of the sector economic system will meet to discuss the limits and potential of their activities; the second, on Saturday 13 at 12:00, will be on the Bio-economy and the advent of new materials, and the third, on Sunday 14 at 12:00, will be on the Circular Economy: technological innovation and new social models, involving numerous start-ups which will tell their remarkable stories and how the current social models will be modified as a result. Another topic will be shop 4.0, in other words how to enhance the traditional sales outlet using new digital technologies, and also others, without distorting it. A temporary shop will be set-up to demonstrate some innovative technologies for sales outlets, which are already successfully used today. There will also be a seminar focusing on the topics of innovation in commerce and the enhancement of sales outlets thanks to new technologies, with two sessions: Friday afternoon and Sunday morning.

MAKERS FOR SPACE

The area dedicated to space, new to this edition, is realized in collaboration with the Italian section of the British Interplanetary Society, the curator of the technical and cultural aspects of the space section, and the School of Aerospace Engineering of Rome La Sapienza University, which will display valuable historical artefacts. The highlight of this area will be the legendary Apollo Guidance Computer, one of the greatest innovations of the Apollo program; Don Eyles, a MIT programmer and engineer and an exceptional maker, who played a key role in all of the lunar missions will be there supported by David Baker, PhD and engineer, editor of the magazine Spaceflight, and a prolific author of books, to talk about the ingenuity and solutions that were the key to reaching the Moon. The secrets behind the San Marco Project will also be revealed, explaining, not only the technology, but also the art behind the uninterrupted success of Italian artificial satellites, created by the team of engineers and technicians put together by Luigi Broglio at the same time as the race for the Moon. This area will give an understanding of space and discuss it in practical terms, getting to know the protagonists of yesterday and discovering the inventors of today.

FOOD & AGRITECH AREA

The Food and Agritech Area of Maker Faire Rome focuses on innovation in the farming and food sector and combines the new technologies available to agro-makers and the technological solutions provided by the national farming research system. In particular, the makers will be proposing food sector product innovations, while the national and regional research authorities Crea, Enea and Arsial, together with the universities, will present 30 innovative solutions applicable to all of the framing and food production lines. The technology on display will be supplemented by a series of seminars and technical meetings, dedicated especially to businesses, with the collaboration of La Sapienza, Tor Vergata, Roma Tre, Tuscia and Biomedical Campus universities and Conaf/Fidaf and Fosan – Foundation for Food and Nutrition Studies. On Saturday afternoon, October 13, there will be a meeting attended by the Under-secretary of State of the Ministry of farming, food and forestry policies, Alessandra Pesce, dedicated to the topic of innovation in the Italian food market. There will also be a chance to see the Restaurant of the Future, with sustainable menus by the “Costaggini” hoteliers institute of Rieti, with a review of traditional recipes from Lazio innovated in terms of preparation techniques and nutritional value, an educational area for seminars, and a cooking show, in collaboration with Gambero Rosso, with a series of educational events on sustainable food and circular cuisine.

KIDS & EDUCATION AREA

As is tradition, the 6th edition of Maker Faire Rome has an area of 10,000 m2 for young innovators, where aspiring makers aged 4 to 15 can participate in numerous educational activities and laboratories to experiment with technologies and the maker spirit, thanks to digital coding, making and creativity. The Creative Learning Table is an unmissable attraction of this edition, a table rich in tinkering activities to expand manual and creative capacities thanks to the creative reuse of recyclable materials. Not only children, but also parents and educators, who for the first time will be involved in a “hands on” experience side-by-side with their children or students. The Open Lab area also returns this year, where young innovators will be able to discover all of the secrets of the makers without being accompanied. The Kids & Education area of the Maker Faire, provided by Codemotion Kids, will be a place for all visitors to imagine, make and live unforgettable experiences.

The educational activities at Maker Faire Rome 2018 are widespread and varied: Hundreds of conferences, seminars and workshops on topics such as industry 4.0, home automation, drones and robotics, IoT – Internet of Things, technology applied to means of transport, cooking and music. After the success of past years, the Teacher area of Maker Faire will be managed by CampuStore (Media Direct Srl) and characterised by 4 halls where hands-on laboratories and workshops for training teachers and educators will be held on educational robotics, Arduino CTC101, IoT, tinkering, 3D printing and BYOD by the educators of the CampuStore Academy, some of the top Italian experts in innovative education. In addition to the educational halls, CampuStore will also set-up a display area in the Kids area in collaboration with international partners such as LEGO® Education, littleBits and ozoBot, where products used in the various laboratories can be tried out and purchased. A wide-range of educational activities are provided by the School of Robotics which, in addition to certified training for teachers and educators, will launch the first edition of the “Humanoids Festival”, a hackathon where teams will challenge each other in programming different types of humanoid robots.

There will also be an exciting journey into the future of music with the A.M.I. (Artificial Music Intelligence) algorithm devised by Alex Braga with Professors Francesco Riganti Fulginei, Antonino Laudani and Alessandro Salvini and Roma Tre University. There will also be a space for video-mapping, with a wall illustrating profiles of the monuments of Rome. There will be workshops on video-mapping on all three days of the Maker Faire, from visual designers Pietro Grandi, Martina Brunelli, Tommaso Bassanini and Francesco Previdi, under the artistic direction of Cristina Redini. The topic of design will also be a protagonist of the Maker Faire. ADI will participate in the event displaying a series of very different products to highlight the importance of the role of designers in all sector, from design for sports to designing services. The products selected by ADI Lazio, which will be on show for all three days of the event, come from all over Italy and many of them have been awarded the Compasso d’Oro (Golden Compass).

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About Boris Landoni

Boris Landoni is the technical manager of Open-Electronics.org. Skilled in the GSM field, embraces the Open Source philosophy and its projects are available to the community.

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