#ITmakES, the new know-how born between Italy and Spain (itmakes.net) is a network project between civil societies, companies, education centres, developed by the Italian Embassy in Spain with the support of big companies such as Bulgari, Artemide and Reale Assicurazioni.
#ITmakES fosters the emergence of a new community of Italian professionals in Spain in the field of cultural, creative and innovative industries, and supports the "new know-how", contextualized in the relationship between the two countries. The concept bypasses the idea of ​​a set of specific products and the limits of national territory. A new way of understanding production, integrating functionality, form and creativity with new technologies and social sustainability. This new know-how appeals to a sense of belonging with the territorial dimension and to the revaluation of local development through cohesive companies, capable of interacting profitably by generating development and synergies with the social, economic and cultural context in which they operate.
The observed and advanced scheme of shared production (know-how - tradition - new technologies - cultural mix) offers an example of how this good know-how can be recognized, shared and disseminated internationally.
The ability of international projection of these local productive environments, the comings and goings of the "brains" - also thanks to the "Erasmus generation" and the mobility of people from Italy to Europe and worldwide - create and organize identities and ways to undertake "glocal" and creative contaminations among Italian and Spanish designers, creative people, makers and startuppers.
Due to its “transversality”, design has been identified as the starting point of this new approach and several projects have been launched. Among them, the Fab Linkage, an exchange program between Italian and Spanish Fab Labs to work together and launch new common projects. This project also counts on the collaboration of Spanish institutions based in Rome (Accademia di Spagna of Rome – Ministero de Asuntos Exteriores y de Cooperación de España).
The first results of the Fab Linkage will be presented at Maker Faire Rome. The objective is to strengthen the links between Italian and Spanish communities of makers through creative practice by building a true transnational digital manufacturing network.
Fab Labs promoters of the selected projects come from 9 Italian and Spanish cities (Alicante, Barcelona, ​​Cagliari, Lecce, Madrid, Malaga, Milan, Rome and Valencia). Since few months, they are working together in transnational groups, developing experimentation on common projects by focussing on the following topics: Fabrication / City / Interaction / Life / Social.

The Fab Linkage's project:

"BICILISCA" is a chassis of a half bike (an agile and foldable urban transport vehicle) designed and produced digitally. Instead of focusing on the design of the object, Bicilisca has become an occasion to rethink the design and production chain of the objects around us. The first step is of course a CAD design of the main shapes. This initial volume is then optimized by topological optimization algorithms that identify, based on the applied stresses, which areas are the most stressed by emptying those that do not contribute to product strength. Once obtained an optimized 3D, additive machineries are needed to produce it: the piece would in fact be almost impossible to produce with traditional technologies. In this case, a large format printer was used, able to produce objects up to a cubic meter of maximum footprint. As an agile alternative to the topological optimization process, advanced use of CAM Slic3r software has also been tested. Bicilisca is first and foremost a new way of producing products: tailored, optimized according to the efforts they will have to bear, digital and locally produced.

"VEIL" is an interactive textile surface that can be applied for several new and attractive applications in music creation and control, food and entertainment.
Given its particular shape it can have endless uses to be explored in the future.

"CALEIDUINO" is a personal project by José Manuel González Martinez, born of his love for kaleidoscopes. His grandfather, who was a carpenter, would make him kaleidoscopes during visits to his workshop.
The reason for designing CALEIDUINO and CALEIDUINO 2.0 is to enable youngsters (and big kids) to gain knowledge and skills such as programming, technology and mathematics while understanding the intimate relationship between art and geometry. Nothing would make the creator happier than as a result of offering this small invention to the public, someone, somewhere, manages to create a better version of this device, inspired by, and based on it. Without the invaluable collaboration of Marta Verde Baqueiro (visualizer software) and Juan Jesús García Freire (PCB design), this project would not have been possible.

"VIAGGIO IN 5 SENSI": We are building a transfer of technological knowledge (Lecce/IT and Valencia/ES), through the experience that we are going to apply from Fab Labs, with different interfaces showing the user’s interaction with the work of art and crafters. In the case of Lecce, the work is oriented around interface experiences about artistic museums; in the case of Valencia, the work is oriented around the technology-creativity-craft experience. Different technologies are applied in a simple way, minimum one per object. The technologies that have been worked have been based on Arduino (programmable electronics), 3D printing, robotics (to create controlled movement), and other complementary technologies such as the connection with audio and LEDs (light and chromatic control) and many others. The result of the project revolves around a common challenge, thinking of the five senses (touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing), and seeking to show the interaction of experiences that technology can provide, and allow new ways of reading between the user and the different forms of art and design.

"#REme - SOCIAL SHELTERING" is an emergency shelter developed by Fab Lab Alicante. It is designed to create a domestic ephemeral space easy to build with digital fabrication. #REME is a construction system based on a structural unity of small parts. The pieces can be manufactured in any atelier with CNC machines. #Reme is a prototype ready/easy to be modified and versatile in materials and construction techniques. It is an open source design, based on simple materials and an easy geometrical structure, that allows infinite possibilities of redesigning. This strategy ensures that #REme can be built on site where needed, with no transportation costs, local materials and a flexible shape or structure. This possibility of being amplified and transformed is directly related to the multiple uses capability of REme, as a construction system and as a shelter. It can be a provisional classroom, children’s play house, warehouse, green house, or many other uses other than a living space, such as latticework, screen, false ceiling, technical wall, plant facade or test tube for biotechnological tests. The thermal and acoustic insulation is achieved by an inflatable latex or polyamide membrane. Research is currently going on to produce a 3d printed skin with bio plastics, apt to resist weather conditions and adaptable to any possible shape and geometry. Another of the values adopted by #REme is the inclusion of technology as a tool to foster the development of new infrastructures in emergency situations, such as an earthquake or a humanitarian crisis. The proposal is not to bring provisional solutions to those situations, like a prefabricated shelter. The knowledge spread and learned by the people/ societies / local groups would not only help the development of new projects, it would also bring about social empowerment.

"IMBY (In my Backyard) - SOCIAL SHELTERING" proposes a little eco-house that can be assembled in a few days in the garden of someone who volunteers to host an immigrant or a refugee family. The last 10th of November, Sadeq, Afghanistan refugee, restarted his life in the first IMBY house in Montreuil, Paris. IMBY allows the owner to accommodate 1/2 persons preserving his privacy. The tiny-house has a kitchen, bathroom, “wc”, space for sleeping in the upper mezzanine and another space down to cohabitation, used as a living and dining room. To build up the house, ecological materials are used that guarantees a great thermic comfort. In the recent construction in Paris, the tiny-house got a space built with polycarbonate to enjoy a semi-open space in contact with the exterior, and at the same time, benefiting from the thermal response of the green garden effects. The façade is done with traditional wooden structure and sub-structure in aluminum, embracing the polycarbonate panels. DAT Pangea -Design of Architectural Territories Pangea- in collaboration with the French association Quatorze and Fabricació Ateneus of Barcelona presents the first prototype scale of 1: 1 size 1250x1000x2200mm manufactured by digital fabrication techniques of the greenhouse polycarbonate facade for the IMBY House. Based on the “FabCity” concept, the idea is to combine market rules with social needs. IMBY is thought to enable significant economies and reduce production while controlling budget through an easy assembly system based on an open source license.

"NORAG CAT" is innovation, fresh air, experimentation, electronic, sound, image but above all, it is passion.
Passion for the creation of music from the maker philosophy, able to realize their own devices or modifying and praising others to realize sessions that inspire technology and exhale emotion.

"B-SENSOR: For people forced to spend many hours on the wheelchair, keeping the same position for a long period of time, a duration of which is going to be subjective and dependant of many factors, results in constant pressure on the same parts of the body, creating the risk of eschar formation. Continuous assessment of pressure could inform physicians about repositioning strategies and play a key role in a comprehensive strategy for the prevention and management of decubitus wounds. There are currently “smart” cushions, which can prevent the formation of sores and ulcers, thanks to a matrix of pressure sensors, but their cost is very high.
The aim of the project is to provide a low-cost Pad that prevents the formation of sores. The Pad is made with materials and techniques that make it possible to incorporate and integrate electronic components and biometric sensors into the fabric. Users of the Pad will find easy to use and manage the various parameters and options through smartphones, such as the time it takes before sending an alarm signal, pressure sensitivity or correct position.

---