Virtual reality and gaming at Maker Faire Rome 2026: playing to understand
Step into the game
From 23 to 25 October 2026, at Gazometro Ostiense in Rome, the Immersive & Gaming area of Maker Faire Rome puts virtual reality, augmented reality, simulators and video games to the test.
Here the play is serious: to explore places out of reach, learn a trade, train the body or better understand how the mind works.
Virtual reality: going where you couldn’t
With a headset you can go to places you can’t visit, or that never existed.
With the ESA VR Tour, the European Space Agency recreates the historic exhibits of the ESRIN centre in Frascati, through archive material and stories from the missions. With Scuderia Tor Vergata you get a close look at the components of a single-seater racing car and ride a simulated lap from the driver’s point of view.
Roma Tre University reconstructs Italian architecture that never left the drawing board and takes you through the history of education in virtual environments guided by AI-powered avatars.
The University of Salerno brings the heritage of Southern Italy into a virtual museum, while the University of Genoa shows how virtual reality can be used in rehabilitation and clinical training.
Simulators: drive and fly without the risks
With simulators you learn by doing, without facing real-world risks.
A community of developers brings flight simulation and interactive scenarios. The University of Florence presents a gyroscopic driving simulator, while professional simulators and telemetry turn motorsport into a gateway to STEM subjects.
Playing with the body and the mind
At the University of Rome Tor Vergata, brain activity becomes a game controller: through electroencephalography, certain mental states control what happens on screen.
Elsewhere all it takes is a webcam to turn your body into the controller, with no headsets or wearable sensors. Open-source wearable sensors, meanwhile, record your movements and bring them into virtual reality experiences.
Minecraft, coding and games that make you think
MakerCamp, an Official Minecraft Partner, offers workshops where children and teens learn to code and solve problems inside Minecraft, along with augmented reality and simulation experiences.
With LUMSA, play also becomes a tool for understanding the city: you make decisions about Rome’s neighbourhoods by distributing resources between mobility, culture and tourism.
High schools bring gaming, electronics and artificial intelligence too: you can challenge an AI at noughts and crosses, or turn an industrial robot into a game open to the public.
Even traditional games change shape: tombola becomes electronic, and a word game passes the turn with a magnetic egg.
