Maker Faire Rome 2025: from 3D printing to social robotics, 5 health projects to improve everyone’s health

What projects and technologies are present in the world of health? Innovation and technology can increase life expectancy and support disabilities in all their forms. At Maker Faire Rome 2025 you were able to experience all this first-hand: a choice that puts health at the centre and technological innovation at the service of our well-being. But if you missed it, here is a brief summary of the best health projects that were showcased at the Gazometro from 17 to 19 October. We were particularly impressed by those born out of personal experiences: challenges that are taken up and transformed into entrepreneurial projects that are not ends in themselves, but become a common good.

Innovation and sport: disability provides the impetus to return to the field

Daniele Pepe is a maker and founder of Together we ride. His story says a lot about the relationship between makers and health. Daniele was born with a disability in his upper limb and designed his own sports prosthesis so he could get back to mountain biking. That need gave rise to a solution that now allows many young people to return to sport. His team is made up of makers, designers, physiotherapists and prosthetic technicians with backgrounds in engineering, industrial design and 3D printing.

«We have already carried out educational projects in schools, workshops on inclusion and functional aids for various daily activities. We combine technical skills and personal motivation to innovate from the bottom up», he said about “Ride Again”, a social and technological innovation project created to restore freedom and opportunities to young people with motor disabilities through the creation of customised sports prosthetic aids, designed in 3D and manufactured using additive printing.

Its goal? To enable children and young people with malformations or amputations of the upper and lower limbs to return to playing sports, particularly mountain biking, but also disciplines involving rapid movements and contact sports, where grip and stability are essential.

Breast cancer: we couldn’t just stand by and watch

Three young women from Novara have taken up the challenge of finding new healthcare solutions that are not aimed at setting up a start-up and making a profit, but at the common good. ‘We are young women, and every day we hear about women who are diagnosed with breast cancer; it has even happened to some of our teachers. That’s where the idea came from,’ they told the press. Alessia Facchinetti,18, and her classmates from the Omar Institute in Novara, Victoria Bonomelli and Matilde Mazzini, presented MAV d-IA-gnosis: Prevention-Diagnosis through A.I at Maker Faire Rome 2025 a project that uses artificial intelligence to analyse mammograms and medical images, helping in the early diagnosis of tumours and improving preventive healthcare.

Disability, chess on a real keyboard? The Nao robot takes care of it

3D printing, artificial intelligence and even robotics. Automation could not be missing from this brief selection of innovative health projects featured at Maker Faire Rome 2025. ‘One of the team members plays in a chess team. The challenge was to enable people with disabilities to play a game on a keyboard.” Alberto Michelini, Alessandro Sabbadini, Andrea Peerani, Filippo Malavolta and Martin Hu put their signatures on Play Chess with NAO. The idea is this: the humanoid robot NAO helps a person with disabilities to play chess, receiving voice commands from them and sending them to a robotic arm that moves the pieces. The project makes chess accessible to people with disabilities or people who cannot be physically present at the location of the chessboard. Digital solutions have been available on the web for some time, but this project will make it possible to move real pieces on a real chessboard. It is a solution that promotes the use of social robotics for inclusion and therapy.

Artificial intelligence and mobility: the voice-controlled wheelchair

Smart wheelchair operated by voice commands was also created with this spirit in mind. It is a project for a smart wheelchair controlled by voice and was developed to improve the independence of people with motor disabilities. It uses sensors and voice recognition to offer personalised assisted mobility. Behind it is the research and application of Davide Borghi and Thomas Piseddu, students in the V Electronics and Robotics class at the IIS TITO SARROCCHI in Siena.

They say they used «artificial intelligence and the ability to recognise certain words to enable the wheelchair to move in any direction. A UDOO and a microphone recognise certain keywords and activate the movements». The idea came about «from wanting to add features not found in a wheelchair. The first step was to control it using a mobile phone or tablet. We then used a helmet and a gyroscope to move it using head movements, while this year we are using words for movement».

Autism: robotics that helps children

Marco Picarella (Biosphaera), Emanuela Riccio, Martina Semino and Luca Vascelli (from Tice) are a group of robotics experts and therapists working in the field of autism. At Maker Faire Rome 2025, they presented Orazio (trade name Ohbot), an inexpensive robotic head that was used between 2024 and 2025 in an experimental project with autistic children, carried out by two social cooperatives, Biosphaera and Tice. Once programmed to perform eight different exercises specifically designed for autistic subjects, it was tested on a sample of 11 children aged between three and ten.

The team emphasises that the results showed improved behavioural regulation and greater sustained attention in sessions with the robot compared to traditional sessions, with no effects dependent on the child’s age.