On the 11 of November I had the pleasure to present at the Node.js Conference Italy the work I’ve been doing with Dominik and a bunch of other guys in the San Francisco area on the “brain” of the robotic submarine called OpenROV.
On my way back from Brescia I stopped by at the first Italian Maker Faire, held in the big expo area of Milano Rho, where I wandered among stands full of flying drones, biped robots, 3D printers, FabLabs and electronics shops.
Together with web development, the makers and open hardware movement is something I’m getting interested in, and after few months dedicated totally to web development, this was a weekend totally devoted to these two new interests.
Slide and resource of my OpenROV presentation at Node.js Conference
During the 30 minutes presentation I went over the physical design of the OpenROV, the reasons why it has been build in the first place, and an overview of the architecture of the software that runs on the small board inside the robot itself.
I was the only one doing a presentation in JavaScript, using Reveal.js, which was shocking being it a conference on JavaScript: the slides are available both as JavaScript presentation but also published on Slideshare.
On my other blog about all things HW and makers I also wrote a blog post with a bit more of resources and a longer commentary of the event.
The Italian Maker Faire
On my way back home, after the Node.js conference hackathon, I spent a few hours wandering among the stands at Makers Italy: the maker movement is invading Italy too… finally!
Not only robots and drones, but also a lot of stands on digital fabrication tools (3D printers above everything) and of small makers’ founded companies making various items like custom skateboards, guitars, bags, jewelries and so on.
Not sure if that movement will bring innovation or it’s just yet another trend, but for the moment it seems like a lot of people are getting interested, building tools for makers, and it won’t be long before digital fabrication tools will land in every house. Already now, 3D printers are less expensive of a low level PC 10 years ago, and I guess they’ll reach the cost of an entry level laptop.
Again on my drones&rovs blog I wrote my impressions and a small review of the stands I found more interesting.