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'Welcome to Innovation Island': UI LABS Touted as Tech Epicenter

By Paul Biasco | May 12, 2015 4:50am

GOOSE ISLAND — Dean Bartles wants to rename Goose Island. 

"Welcome to Innovation Island," the executive director of Chicago's new $340 million advanced manufacturing lab said.

That line might sound right out of a Jurassic Park movie, but on Monday, a who's who of city, state and national politicians, along with leaders in manufacturing, education and from the Department of Defense, were all on hand to see that innovation first hand. 

They all believe the new 94,000-square-foot UI LABS, an applied research and demonstrations lab which fired up its engines Monday, is the future.

"We want to create the next breakthroughs that will move our country forward," said Carolynn Nowinski, executive director of UI LABS.

Paul Biasco discusses what UI LABS means to Chicago:

The centerpiece of the new headquarters is a 24,000-square-foot manufacturing floor that showcases the machines and technology at the forefront of future manufacturing.

In the middle of the bright, airy and metallic-chic warehouse sits a transparent box. Inside that box are two robotic arms that swing in synchronicity, almost dancing together under the eye of an infrared camera.

The orange arms of the robot work in coordination with each other while building a trapezoid of carbon fiber thermoplastic layer by layer.

The future technology could be used to construct parts on Mars or in other stretches of space where man cannot yet live — or help build the next satellite without shipping sheets of metal up to a space station.

Ed Pierson, a senior staff engineer at Lockheed Martin, said the machine is representative of the technology that will be in space in 10 to 15 years and, sooner than that, in automobile manufacturing.


A multi-robotic manufacturing system creating a trapezoid from carbon fiber thermoplastics at UI LABS. [DNAinfo/Paul Biasco]

President Barack Obama announced plans for UI LABS and the first major funding source for the project, a $70 million Department of Defense grant, to construct the center last year.

"With this the city of Chicago is at the epicenter of advanced manufacturing," said Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Ald. Walter Burnett, whose 27th Ward the building resides in, wants Chicago’s youth to see what's taking place.

UI Labs is arguably one of the most important digital manufacturing epicenter in the United States, and the team of scientists, government and military officials behind it hope it will serve as the jumping point for the country to regain its place in the manufacturing elite, he said.

UI Labs sits right in the shadow of the former Cabrini-Green public housing projects, a rapidly redeveloping area where Burnett grew up.

He hopes the labs will serve as a place of wonder for the city's children that will  implant an itch that will lead them to chase careers in engineering and digital manufacturing.

Children in his ward are already tinkering with MakerBot 3D printers at YOUmedia center inside the Richard M. Daley library in Humboldt Park, for example.

"Once they are exposed to it, they master it. They make all kinds of things," Burnett said. "My goal is to make sure those folks, young people, not only see it at the library level, but come and see it in the real technology and corporation level."

Burnett wants the city's youth to realize this is where the jobs are and where the economy is headed. It's also pretty cool.

"We don’t think about manufacturing as a cool job, but it is a good-pay, high-knowledge job," Nowinski said. "We want to make sure we are doing everything we can to get [Chicago children] to understand what’s going on here."

 

UI Labs is planning "digital days" for CPS schools to come to the headquarters and see first-hand the opportunities that exist in the field.

"We are a national hub. Just by the nature that this is here means we are going to be more accessible to Chicagoland manufacturers and we are going to be more accessible to Chicagoland workers and Chicagoland's [engineers and] school kids," Nowinski said. "That is going to mean something for our local economy."

Obama wants to create 45 similar labs scattered across the country to lead the U.S. into the digital manufacturing future.

UI LABS will be awarding the first three research projects for the DMDII, totaling more than $15 million. By the end of the year, the lab expects to award $50 million in research projects to be conducted at UI LABS.

In three years, they want a portfolio of $100 million in sponsored projects.

"We will demonstrate to all who come that manufacturing is no longer dark, dirty and dangerous, but clean, modern and data-driven," said Dean Bartles, executive director of the DMDII.


The showcase floor at UI LABS. [DNAinfo/Paul Biasco]

UI LABS' primary goal is to solve large-scale industrial challenges by bringing together academic, corporate and civic partners, officials said.

The second lab UI LABS will launch, CityWorks, will also be housed at the headquarters on Goose Island in the former Republic Windows & Doors building, 1333 N. Hickory Ave.

CityWorks, which was announced in March, seeks to be a testing ground for urban infrastructure projects that will eventually make their way into cities across the country.

CityWorks partners include Accenture, ComEd, Microsoft and Siemens and was created in collaboration with the City of Chicago, local universities and other civic partners.

The program is set to launch this year with six to eight demonstration projects at UI Labs.

"UI LABS is driving the innovations and collaborations that will solve some of the greatest challenges of our time," Nowinski said.

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