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Maker Faire Rome Exhibitors Fast-Forward to ‘The Future in the Making’

Figure 3: Roobopoli encourages experimentation with AI and Figure 4: Ternary computers promise more features and smaller
Industry 4.0 concepts. (Source: Maurizio Di Paolo Emilio) footprints. (Source: Maurizio Di Paolo Emilio)

Gymnasio was a winner of the Switch2Product challenge, a program was equipped with accelerometers, a gyroscope, infrared sensors, a
that promotes innovative market solutions, new technologies, color sensor, and a time-of-flight proximity sensor.
and new business ideas. The startup formed to commercialize the
project was founded by three Milan Polytechnic and two Turin EMBEDDED
Polytechnic alumni. During the fair, Rome-based Melopero presented its Shake RP2040, a
Roobopoli (Figure 3), a collaboration among Arrow, Bluenet, developer board based on the Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller and
and STMicroelectronics, offers an educational experience based on programmable in C/C++, MicroPython, CircuitPython, and Arduino.
smart city, smart industry, Computers, smartphones, software applications and apps, micro-
Ternary technology and smart grid concepts. processors, and all the digital devices with which we interact daily are
The project’s mission is
based on binary logic. What would a switch to ternary (three digit),
offers higher to promote large-scale computational logic mean for the capabilities of a future generation of
information density in experimentation with digital devices?Ternary technology offers higher information density
in a smaller footprint. When implemented on silicon, this technology
communication, mobility,
a smaller footprint and, environmental protection, allows for space savings or for more features in the same surface area.
The technology has a place in robotics and AI, with ternary neural
energy efficiency, and
when implemented on automation technologies networks and applications envisioned for high-speed transmission,
silicon, allows for more in order to advance under- numerical computation, and advanced algorithm programming.
standing and support the
At Maker Faire Rome, Ternary-computing.com presented a ternary
features in the same development of AI apps in computer (Figure 4) based on a ternary CPU 5500FP with 8-Mtryte
RAM and two serial ports for I/O via terminal and mini ITX formats.
Industry 4.0.
surface area. Students will be able to use
the project’s tools to build AGRITECH
and program vehicles and Maker Faire hosted an agricultural startup, AgriDatalog, that has
other elements of a smart city. Armed with an in-depth understanding developed two systems for controlling water resources and nutrient
of robotics and next-generation microcontroller programming, demands. The first, Agridatalogger, consists of a self-powered inte-
they will be able to drive vehicles autonomously through the streets grated electronics pole with sensors for detecting and transmitting
of Roobopoli. soil, environmental, and crop characteristics. The project is driven by
At the Arrow/ST booth, Mauro D’Angelo, senior system testing software and by mobile devices that can display detected parameters
engineer at STMicroelectronics, described the project and demon- and indicators calculated according to scientific algorithms, provid-
strated a Roobokart, controlled with an STM32 microcontroller ing dynamic graphs of the soil matrix potential, soil temperature,
mounted on a Nucleo F401RE board. The board is connected to a volumetric content of water in the soil, and parameters related to the
motherboard through dedicated connectors that include the sensors microclimatic environment. The system includes an alert system that
that the Roobokart needs to perform its mission. The demo Roobokart uses email, text, and push notifications to signal when threshold values

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