Makers presented a lot of Open Source projects about robotics, electronics, mechanics and coding
A selection of projects designed to make innovation easier for anyone as presented at the 10th edition of Maker Faire Rome
Makers are without doubts the protagonists of Maker Faire Rome: engineers, artists, students that assemble a veritable community made by people, startups and companies united by the same passion for innovation.
The open source approach is one of the main pillars of the Maker movement, based on the sharing of processes, resources and tools among people eager to freely give their contribution to the community, making it possible to develop a product by addition.
This open source approach is of course nothing new – let’s just think to Linux operative system or to Firefox browser, respectively launched in 1991 and in 2002. But today, this concept has been extended to the goods and services, overpassing the limitation imposed by patents, intellectual properties and copyrights.
In the following rows we provide you a selection of projects presented during the 10th edition of MFR, realized by makers for other makers, in order to make innovation and its disciplines – robotics, electronics, mechanics and coding – really accessible to everyone.
PicoBricks
PicoBricks is a device designed to be used by both expert and amateur makers in a wide range of projects. It is made by an electronic development board, a software and a protoboard which allows the addition of new modules.
PicoBricks is aimed to electronics and coding enthusiasts no matter their level of expertise: the beginners with no previous knowledge of the subject will enjoy the simplicity of its use thanks to the modular hardware, the scratch-like block-based coding environment and the simulator, whereas the experts will use PicoBricks to go deeper in the electronic design and to explore Python coding. The professional producers will instead appreciate the possibility to use this device to quicklier explore ideas and create prototypes.
The project is developed by Robotistan, an e-commerce startup created in 2010 by six friends in an University club with the goal of realizing DIY marketable products. Today Robotistan includes 50 members and develops new technologies, creates know-how contents and distributes innovative products all over the world.
Ant WorkFlow: PCB Fabrication @Home
Ant WorkFlow is a device that includes everything a maker could need to realize electronic circuits: a CNC, an open-source software, a control board and much passion.
Inside you will find: the Ant, a compact CNC optimized by PCB milling; the Ant Farm, a new open-source software which will guide makers in the realization of their projects from the CAM files to the milled board; the Ant Queen, the last version of the control board for small CNC.
The project has been realized by “The Ant Team”, a couple of makers fond of electronics, software, firmware and DIY that, in occasion of Maker Faire Rome 2022, showed to the public a complete flux of PCB realization in a path from digital to physical objects, filled with different technological aspects.
Continual Brain
Continual Brain is a project based on a new paradigm of software service call “Continual Learning as a Service”, which provides a set of tools and algorithms for AI systems, easy to integrate in devices with limited computing capacity and memory (edge/device).
This solution, realized by Rudy Semola, Davide Bacciu and Vincenzo Lomonaco, allows an on-device training and a real-time model inference, and aims at guarantee an automatic and efficient monitoring of the performances of models, including those produced on cloud and server-based systems.
Mekanika: open-source machinery for Makers
Mekanika is a young Belgian startup that wants to change the current productive paradigm designing and selling to Makers open-source machinery.
At Maker Faire Rome 2022 Mekanika presented their array of CNC machines and serigraphic printing. This centuries-old technique is now used in an innovative way for different applications: from billposting to OOH advertisement, creation of drawings on various medium and of different dimensions, portraits, reproduction of artworks and so on. Thanks to this technique it became possible to print on different types of materials.
Maker Faire Rome – The European Edition has been committed since its very first edition to make innovation accessible, usable and profitable for all. This blog is always updated and full of opportunities and inspiration for makers, makers, SMEs and all the curious ones who wish to enrich their knowledge and expand their business, in Italy, in Europe and beyond.
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