Maker Faire Trieste 2021

Maker Faire Trieste, the annual gathering of creative, curious people who enjoy learning, doing and sharing, takes place next weekend. On Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 September, Piazza Unità in Trieste will welcome dozens of makers - engineers, artists, scientists, crafters - who will share their hobbies, experiments and projects with the public.

An exciting journey through creativity, technology and research, the event focusses on an interactive and fun approach to learning, while exploring, playing and experimenting. Antique clocks made into educational kits, string-theory based games for children, flying water-fuelled rockets, and magic "science" tricks will give everyone an opportunity to learn something new and be fascinated by science and technology.

Next to hundreds of original prototypes, performances, science demonstrations, and inventions, the public will meet inventors and scientists and will experiment with science and technology. Visitors will find all sorts of interesting objects: drones and ROVs, clay 3d printers, robots, working miniature locomotives, 3D archeological discoveries, and so on. Next to the makers' exhibitions, the Science Picnic will be an event aiming to promote science through demonstrations and outdoor activities with an informal and fun style. The event will include interactive experiments, shows, meetings with scientists and creative workshops. Another area will be devoted to space science and technology, in preparation for the Space Apps Challenge, a virtual global hackaton coordinated internationally by NASA and hosted locally by ICTP in October.

Maker Faire is organized by ICTP and Comune di Trieste, in collaboration with Trieste's science center Immaginario Scientifico and with the support of Regione Autonoma Friuli Venezia Giulia. The Maker Faire originated in 2006 in the San Francisco Bay Area and it has since grown into a significant worldwide network of both flagship and independently-produced events. The Maker Faire Trieste has now grown internationally - after its beginnings as "Trieste Mini Maker Faire" in 2014 - and it is growing even more this year, incorporating new interactive activities, shows and educational workshops.

The ICTP community has been crucial for the organization of the event. The Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) section will display, among other things, the "Cloud chamber", a particle detector designed and created by the ICTP Sci FabLab, and the “SandBox”, an augmented-reality terrain simulator, perfect for talking about hills, mountains and valleys. Salahadin Seid Musa, a fellow from Ethiopia, will also present his project “AI-Nose", an AI-powered electronic nose that uses a machine learning technology to detect different types of beverages.

Two ICTP researchers, moreover, will give talks during the "Science Picnic" event: Francesca Ferrari, a postdoctoral fellow in the HECAP section will explain “How numbers, strings and black holes intertwine", and STI scientist Federico Bernardini will talk about "3D archaeological maps of the roman presence around Trieste".

"This is a perfect occasion for ICTP to promote a concrete dialogue with the public," said ICTP's scientist Sandro Scandolo during the event's press conference on Monday. "At the Maker Faire science becomes alive, something that can be touched and seen by everybody."

For more information on the event, please visit: https://trieste.makerfaire.com/