The project ActivE³ - Everyone, Everywhere, Everyday, 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 - Polo territoriale di Lecco, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche - sede di 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.