Meccanica Magazine n. 4

ENG
ActivE³: a project to promote inclusivity and sport
The project ActivE³ - Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day, started in the
last months of 2022, has been selected and financed with 3.5 million
euros by Fondazione Cariplo and Regione Lombardia. Univerlecco is
the coordinator of the project that also involves: Politecnico di Milano
- Lecco Campus, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - Lecco, IRCCS
“Eugenio Medea” - Associazione La Nostra Famiglia, Fondazione
Valduce, Ospedale Valduce, Centro di Riabilitazione “Villa Beretta”,
IRCCS INRCA di Casatenovo, ASST Lecco e ATS Brianza.
ActivE³ will last for three years and has three main objectives:
- Promote an active lifestyle as a means for wellness and prevention;
- Favour accessibility and inclusivity in practising sport;
- Support people with physical and psychological fragilities to
enhance their human well-being.
The partners will work together, each with different expertise,
stimulating a step-by-step process in which technology plays
a central role in overcoming barriers that, even nowadays, limit
access to an active lifestyle at every age. ActivE³ activities address
the needs of children and teenagers for whom sport is essential for
growth and social life in school and in their free time, adults for whom
sport means distraction, social relationships and prevention, and the
elderly to improve cure and prevention (physical and cognitive) and
social opportunities.
A platform for sports inclusivity at school
ActivE³ aims to take action in primary schools for children to have to
opportunity to do sport as a leisure, educational and inclusive activity,
no matter their physical or mental fragilities. The plan is to design
and validate new spaces and technologies to outrun the obstacles
to doing sports activities while creating a training programme for
children, families and teachers promoting health, prevention and
healthy lifestyles within the scholar system.
A customised coaching platform
The aim is to develop an accessible digital solution (web and app) to
stimulate and monitor individual and group physical activity. A single
tool with multiple functions: a customised coaching platform for the
users and a precious data and information collector for researchers
and institutions (ATS/ASST) to plan prevention initiatives for the
community and remote therapeutic monitoring.
Sport-Therapy platform
Two technological solutions will be developed to allow fragile people,
those with disabilities, and the elderly to have an active lifestyle. The
first one is based on biking, an activity with a low physical impact,
both in and outdoors. A Virtual Reality system will recreate a biking
itinerary in a digital environment. The patients on their exercise
bikes will find themselves riding their bicycles in a park or along the
riverside with the possibility to meet and interact with other users
virtually.
The system “Trike” will also be developed, combining motor action
and Functional electrical stimulation (FES) for outdoors biking. It will
favour inclusivity for fragile people or people with disabilities that
otherwise would not be able to carry out any activity.
The second solution involves developing interactive booths with a
user profiling system to customise their activities. Users can access
with their mobile through interactive totems showing the physical
activity to do, guided by an avatar-trainer.
This project involves Prof. Marco Tarabini, Prof. Francesco Braghin
and Prof. Mario Covarrubias from the Department of Mechanical
Engineering.
meccanica magazine
87