Starting tomorrow, Friday, Dec. 1st, the Arduino team will be exhibiting at 5th annual Maker Faire Rome – The European Edition. Those heading to Rome over this weekend (December 1st -3rd) are invited to swing by our booth at Pavilion 7 (Interaction) and join us for some inspiring talks. This year Arduino is also operating the official Maker Shop with lots of products and ideas that can help you find original gifts for Christmas.

The booth

We’ve been preparing a series of demos for adults and kids at the booth to showcase the new Arduino Education products and programs and the latest developments of the MKR family boards and IoT solutions. Moreover, you’ll have the opportunity to learn more about the AUG (Arduino User Group) Program, to meet the winner of the Arduino MKR FOX 1200 Contest, and to play with an interactive installation by Supsi university!

The store

At Pavillon 7, close to Arduino Booth there will be a Maker Shop by Arduino selling most of the Arduino products (including the latest Arduino MKR WAN 1300 (Lora) and Arduino MKR GSM 1400 recently announced!). You’ll find also some other interesting kits and Christmas gift ideas for kids, makers and developers, plus a selection of Arduino goodies.

Talks

The Arduino team will join the Maker Faire Rome’s program with some unmissable talks and presentations about Arduino innovations, new products and partnership programs with the following schedule:

• Friday, Dec. 1st (5:00 pm – 5.30 pm, room 3, Sala Euphemia, Pad. 10): Nerea de la Riva Iriepa, Valentina Chinnici, David Cuartielles  ‘Arduino Education: redefining the educational experience with Arduino’
• Friday, Dec 1st (5.30 pm – 6:00 pm, room 3, Sala Euphemia, Pad. 10): Fabio Violante (Arduino CEO), Sara Therner ‘Introducing the Arduino At Heart Program’
• Saturday, Dec. 2nd ( 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm, room 22, Area Formazione 4.0, Pad. 7): Massimo Banzi, ‘Democratizing the Industry 4.0’
• Saturday, Dec. 2nd (3:00 pm – 4:00 pm, room 3, Sala Euphemia, Pad. 10): Fabio Violante (Arduino CEO), Luca Cipriani ‘Arduino Create: the easiest path for IoT development’
• Saturday, Dec. 2nd (2.30 pm – 3:00 pm, room 3, Sala Euphemia, Pad. 10): Andrea Richetta, Arturo Guadalupi ‘Arduino MKR board: an overview’  

We look forward to seeing you all at Pavilion 7 (check out the Makerfaire MAP in PDF

Planning on attending Maker Faire Rome next month? We’re currently seeking volunteers to join our team during the event—staffing tables and displays, leading one-on-one workshops and demos, and providing technical assistance when necessary.

If you volunteer with us for one shift, you won’t leave empty-handed! You’ll receive a day pass; spend two days with us, and you’ll have a ticket for the entire weekend to explore the show. Water and snacks will be provided, of course, along with some Arduino goodies.

Interested in helping out at our booth? Please fill out this questionnaire, and we’ll get back to you soon!

If you are underage, we will need your parents’ permission.

• When: December 1st-3rd (Friday-Sunday)
• Venue: Pavillion 6, Fiera di Roma, Viale Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, 79, 00148 Ponte Galeria RM
• Shifts: See this online form
• More info at events@arduino.cc

Maker Faire Rome: AAAA, cercasi volontar* per il booth Arduino

Hai in programma di partecipare a Maker Faire Roma? Entra a far parte del team di volontar* all’Arduino booth! Stiamo cercando appassionat* di Arduino che ci aiutino durante l’evento dando il benvenuto ai visitatori e fornendo assistenza tecnica e supporto durante le demo.

Con un turno di volontariato allo stand Arduino, avrai a disposizione un pass per l’intera giornata; se, invece, sarai al nostro booth per almeno due turni avrai il pass per i tre giorni di evento. Sappiamo quanto sia importante il tuo tempo e quanto sia fondamentale il tuo aiuto al nostro booth, per questo motivo saremo felici di offrirti il pranzo e una selezione di gadget Arduino.

Ti interessa diventare un* volontari* al booth Arduino? Per favore completa questo form, ti faremo sapere prestissimo!

Se hai meno di 18 anni, puoi partecipare ma con il consenso firmato dei tuoi genitori!

• Quando: 1, 2 e 3 Dicembre 2017 (Venerdì, Sabato, Domenica)
• Dove: Padiglione 6, Fiera di Roma, Viale Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, 79, 00148 Ponte Galeria Roma
• Turni: Vedi questo form
• Per ogni informazione: contattare events@arduino.cc

Interactive kinetic installations are always incredible to see in action, but they become even more awesome when they’re part of a performance. As in the case of Infinite Delta, which is the result of Boris Chimp 504 + Alma D’ Arame’s artistic residency at Montemor-o-Novo in Portugal.

Using Arduino boards, they built a physical structure comprised of triangular planes that swing back and forth like a pendulum, controlled by a series of servo motors. Light is projected onto the moving structures, creating patterns that are then reflected onto a nearby wall. Infinite Delta also modifies its shape in response to the movement and sound of the audience.

In Euclidean geometry any three points, when non-collinear, form a unique triangle and determine a unique plane. Nevertheless, in quantum physics the string theory proposes that fundamental particles may also have similarities with a string. It also states that the universe is infinite and in it all matter is contained. In this “multiverse”, our universe would be just one of many parallel existent universes. What would happen then if we multiply triangles infinitely? Could or would we have access to those parallel universes?

The performers augmented the physical world by overlaying it into the digital world to produce a new alternative, magic and hyper-sensorial landscape.

For those living in a high-rise, have you ever wondered what was going on behind the closed blinds of your neighbor’s home directly across from you?

Caretaker is a concept project that explores just that. It consists of a custom-made switch board with which you can control the lights of the flats opposite of yours, providing active entertainment that stimulates your senses better than passive media consumption.

If you want one of your own, simply take a picture of the building that you see from your window and Caretaker will design a laser-cut scale model of it for your use. The prototype runs on an Arduino and is battery-powered, allowing you to freely move it around.

The project is the work of Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest (MOME) student, Máté Varga, in collaboration with Barbara Sterk, Miklos Erhardt, Adam Polhodzik, and FabLab Budapest.

You can see it in action below!

For those living in a high-rise, have you ever wondered what was going on behind the closed blinds of your neighbor’s home directly across from you?

Caretaker is a concept project that explores just that. It consists of a custom-made switch board with which you can control the lights of the flats opposite of yours, providing active entertainment that stimulates your senses better than passive media consumption.

If you want one of your own, simply take a picture of the building that you see from your window and Caretaker will design a laser-cut scale model of it for your use. The prototype runs on an Arduino and is battery-powered, allowing you to freely move it around.

The project is the work of Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest (MOME) student, Máté Varga, in collaboration with Barbara Sterk, Miklos Erhardt, Adam Polhodzik, and FabLab Budapest.

You can see it in action below!

A group of students from Farmington, Connecticut partnered with artist Balam Soto and master teachers Earl Procko and Jim Corrigan to create a community-based sculpture project that allows people to explore the sights, sounds and history of their town through new media.

The installation runs on Arduino Uno and XBee, and is comprised of two panels which act as viewing screens for multiple visual projections. Visitors can interact with the display and manipulate the images using 24 buttons placed on the physical map. Plus, they are encouraged to record and add their own stories and memories of Farmington to the ever-growing multimedia library.

Permanently exhibited in Farmington’s public library, the Farmington Map Project was also the opportunity to introduce the students to physical computing, digital fabrication, woodworking, Arduino programming, and to the potential that Makerspaces have to offer for bringing ideas to life.

The project was created with the support of an Arts in Education Mini-Grant, funded by the Connecticut State Department of Education, the Department of Economic and Community Development, the Connecticut Office of the Arts, and the Connecticut Association of Schools, Farmington High School’s Fine and Applied Arts.

Interested? Check it out on Hackster.

A big thanks to everyone who already submitted their projects, performances, and workshops for Maker Faire Rome. However, due to such an incredible demand, the  Call for Makers submission deadline has been extended to Thursday, June 30th. That means you have one more week to send your applications to participate in the 4th edition of Europe’s biggest innovation event, held October 14-16,2016 at Fiera di Roma.

Want to join us in celebrating Maker culture this fall? With more than 100,000 square meters of exhibition space available, the time to submit your project is now!

Prizes and contests
All the projects selected within the Call for Makers are automatically eligible for the following prizes and contests if they match the requirements specified in each regulation.

• R.O.M.E. Prize –  Rome Outstanding Maker of Europe – 100,000 euro!
• Make to Care – Projects about health and disability
• Startup Contest – Projects related to Internet of Things (IoT)

Enigma machines are fascinating devices, especially for young Makers looking to explore the world of electronics. Awhile back we featured a similar project from Italy, and we’re once again amazed by the work of 14-year-old Andy Eggebraaten, who built a retro-modern gadget of his own. The project, which was for his high school’s science fair, took nine months to complete.

These electro-mechanical rotor cipher machines were developed  in the early 20th century to protect commercial, diplomatic and military communication, used especially by German military intelligence during World War II.

In the video below, Andy opens the machine to show its inner workings: the unit runs on Arduino Mega along with 1,800 other parts and 500 color-coded wires. We can see that he evolved the rotors into electronic modules that plug into D-Sub sockets, and the interface is made using a 16-segment display showing the rotor position as well as an LCD screen to read the plain- and the encoded text.

Coffee, good food, bar? Sometimes it’s hard to explore a new city and choose among hundreds options without spoiling it! A team of students at CIID (Grishma Rao, Justine Syen, Adriana Chiaia, Jivitesh Ranglani) created Pilgrim, a MKR1000-based device providing a tangible interface for discovery without a digital screen. Acting like a smart compass, Pilgrim points people in the direction of a desired location, sourcing data directly from the Yelp API and leading to an eventual unexpected discovery:

The experience begins with the selection of a category using a dial below the compass, that clicks to send out data. The proximity to the destination is then indicated by lights along the rim of the compass, that light up one by one as the person gets closer to the location.

Once a category selection is received via clicking the dial, the code queries the Yelp API to return the coordinates of the best matched result to Pilgrim. The magnetic needle would then turn an angle relative to the user’s current position, replacing magnetic north with coordinates of the destination.

Pilgrim is programmed with a Genuino MKR 1000 which enables the compass to be connected to internet and also has a higher amount of memory. Moreover, Pilgrim uses a magnetometer + accelerometer for the directions, a stepper motor with an H-bridge, and a rotary encoder for the dial.

Git Commit is an interactive installation and exhibition about smart homes, and user response to pervasive technologies entering our private spaces. The installation aims to further the research that Casa Jasmina, powered by Arduino and Genuino, is carrying out regarding social home environment from an open design and user centered perspective.

In order to deeply understand the impact of IoT in the house for the possible stakeholders, an interactive system of four mini-printers will be set up at Palazzo Clerici, a 17th century building located in the heart of the city of Milan, and firstly belonged to one of the oldest and most powerful Milanese families, the Visconti dei Consignori di Somma.

Each printer will be connected to Casa Jasmina GitHub repository where users will be able to respond to questions and spark new avenues to the project.

The feedback gained will inform new types of interactions and approaches to the future smart home, that will reflow in the Casa Jasmina design process.

Come and visit us and give us your input too! Check this page and explore the topics.