Maker Faire Rome Is The Largest Show-and-tell In Europe

Maker Faire Rome rocks! Three whole days October 23-25 were dedicated to the maker spirit of open innovation and craft creativity, with hundreds of exhibitions and demonstrations, workshops and practical activities at the spectacular Gazometro event site.

Rome’s is the world’s largest Maker Faire outside of the Maker Faire Bay Area and it draws exhibitors from all over Europe. This year’s big topics included fair capitals such as electronics, robotics, and digital manufacturing of course, but also a refreshing Euro focus on circular economy and sustainability, fun VR and gaming exhibitions, and Italian strengths such as agriculture and food. And always, with an Italian flair for beautiful and bold design. It really is a blast. If you are in Europe, or you are planning a trip there, consider making Maker Faire Rome a destination at least once.

Major sponsors as usual included our friends at DigiKey and Microchip in addition to the two powerhouse Italian-born electronics companies Arduino and STMicroelectronics, showing many robot and game projects with the new Arduino Uno Q and Ventuno Q boards with STM microcontrollers and Qualcomm processors.

As always, the event is supported by the Italian government as a way to support technology investment and education. This year the Italian National Research Council showed some cool projects, like this B-Shell – a Bistable Collapsible Gridshell from the Visual Computing Lab. Flat-pack it for transport – maybe into space? – then press it into shape.

Or this project, discover optimal spectrum for plant growing lights.

A spectacular centerpiece on the field was Dr. Back to the futuredesigned by Giorgetto Giugiaro, on loan from the museum Enter Technikwelt Solothurn in Switzerland. (Save the date for Soluthurn’s upcoming Maker Faire in the spring, March 13-14. “We have great chocolate and cheese,” promises Fabian Knuchel of the Enter Techikwelt Museum.)

We also see Doc Brown’s Flux Capacitor, in operation at the stand of Electronic enthusiasts Magazine.

Soldering a kit at the stand of Electronic enthusiasts Magazine.

The young engineer Romain Pras builds the Aelox 5-axis 3D printer, an open source project. He shares the files if it works well.

StackChan robots at the always rocking M5Stack booth. I showed the founder/engineer Jimmy Lai that we put the CardputerZero on the cover of the new one Do: Magazine (Vol. 99), and then he showed me a super cool new prototype LoRa gadget that you meshers will enjoy…next year!

Daniele Ingrassia and his team at InMachines kickstart a new open source tool, the Piccola desktop CNC mill, ready for the market with certified safety features and also open source control software. Meanwhile, their OpenLab series of DIY digital fabrication machines (see OpenLab Starter Kit and Do: Volume 95) has a new metal printer based on laser sintering.

Save the bees! Maker Faire Rome has dozens of university engineering team exhibits. This shows AI detection of destructive Varroa mites in beehives.

Cool lights seem to be a specialty at MF Rome. Here, cute 3D printed lamps from Hart Studio, and wacky mechanical robot lamps from Giulio Sannito.

Makey represent! Thanks to Elegoo for this chonky Makey robot, the global mascot of Maker Faires.

xTool was there with their traveling roadshow of new lasers and other digital fabrication tools. (Look for reviews in the next issue of Make!)

Davide Venturini of Precious Plastics Romagna does more than recycle plastic into useful objects and materials, he is also a machinist who has redesigned some basic DIY machines used in the global Precious Plastics community, including a new shredder with hardened steel teeth, a new high pressure injection machine, and a CNC mill for cutting the molds. He also hacked a washing machine to automate the washing of plastic waste, using an Arduino of course. You can find him in the RooT Nerd Club and hackerspace, rootclub.it.

Maybe you brewed your own beer, but did you grind your own barley? GrainLab designed this micro-maltery to spray small batches of your chosen grains. They are also experimenting with 3D printing grain-based foods in different shapes and textures to help people who have difficulty eating some traditional foods.

DIY mushrooms! These mushroom growing setups by DiNicola Fungjhi look like they’ll produce plenty for your kitchen all year round.

Can we clean our clothes without a lot of detergent chemicals and water? I would like to try this OzoSteam Station, which the manufacturer says will get clothes as clean as new, using only steam, then oxygenation by ozone, followed by a hot air drying cycle.

The smallest Geiger counter in the world? Definitely the smallest I’ve seen, the Doze Micro Geiger Counter from Wekos.

Homemade laser by Massimo Capello, a favorite participant also at Maker Faire Trieste.

Young students Francesco Leo and Samuele Maraschio explain their Cultivation of the Future 2.0 project, with full spectrum LEDs in the visible and UV wavelengths, light and humidity sensors, and an irrigation pump, all controlled by an Arduino of course. Well done, boys.

Terrarium in an iMac, by Marco Lucani.

Is that bread dough still available? How about that sourdough starter? The DoughSpy knows. Two types of proof monitors use sensor data to optimize your baking.

The Nuvola 32 is an Italian-made, open source ESP32 dev board for IoT, audio, displays, and retro gaming, by Adriano Ambrosi.

Here is the latest prototype of the Mentime Drink Machine by Andrea Filomeno, intended for sale in 2027.

What’s an Italian Maker Faire without a pasta robot? The Robby Minichef cooks and drains your spaghetti, farfalle and rigatoni with precision, thanks to the manufacturer Gualtiero Regini, a medical device engineer by trade.

The Intellizen Robotics System uses AI on two Arduino Uno Q boards, one for robot control, and one for the intelligent inspection camera. Soon to be upgraded to the more powerful Ventuno Q as soon as their preorders are fulfilled.

Spectacular necklace made from reused keyboards and CDs, by artist/artisan Byludo Ecotech.

Use Indonesian weaving patterns to create Italian ceramic tiles. Project Baur, by Guida Patricia.

Haptic Feedback Rig with Pneumatics, from the Foundation for Medical Robotics.

Wearable airbag for workplace falls, and powered exoskeletons to help with heavy work, exhibited by the Italian Institute of Technology, I-RIM, and others.

Virtual reality robotic surgery simulator, from Sapienza University of Rome.

Virtual reality flight simulator, with appropriate warnings.

The MEYELens eye tracking rig, 3D printed and open source, is a wearable system for measuring pupil reactions and collecting data for research and experiments.

Matteo Villoni’s Orion PDA is an offline handheld computer with a QWERTY keyboard, sunlight readable display, music player and voice recorder. Its Lua development kit lets you create your own applications.

The AliSeas Box helps to collect data about fishing at sea. It automatically measures and identifies fish species with an AI camera system, and weighs them with a smart dual-scale system with accelerometer and two load sensors – one to measure the mass of the fish and one with a calibrated reference mass – to solve the problem of weighing something on board a boat that goes up and down in the waves. Created by the sister-brother team Elena Piccioni (marine biologist, pictured) and Alberto Piccioni (physicist).

The Aperol Spritz truck!

MASH is a clever modular automated sorting system to route packages faster than traditional conveyor/sorting lines. It is the project of three engineering students in Qatar who interned for DHL and came up with this system to reduce the delay of the next day by about 40 percent. Each module is controlled by a simple SMT32 microcontroller, so the entire system can be orchestrated from a single computer and reconfigured at will in software.

The makers, Jai Aadhithya, Nihal Ashik, and Hanish Abdulla also wrote the book Becoming a Maker: A Condensed Introduction to Hobby Robotics. Jai and Nihal were excited to meet an editor Do: magazine (“We grew up with Make: videos on YouTube!”) and ran halfway across the fair to deliver a copy of her book. We wish them all the best with their project and career.

Iris is a robot to help autistic children, using AI interactions to help them manage frustration and develop patience, attention and social interaction. Created by 20 high school students with a Raspberry Pi and of course an Arduino inside.

Arlok educational robots, chill with Makey.

Detecting microplastics in drinking water, with a TDL sensor and Arduino.

The little Fiat Panda is everywhere in Italy. It looks pretty cool, and pretty funny, stepped on as a racer or a rally car.

“An idea. A 3D printer. The sea.” The P3dalo’ is a 3D printed pedal power unit for small boats.

How does digital manufacturing improve the craft? Italian designers and artisans showed the ways in the Avant Craft exhibition, with amazing automotive and racing yacht design, motorcycle helmets, leather and lace work, CNC embroidery, and some wild 3D printed ceramics.