On July 12th, Governor Charlie Baker, University of Massachusetts President Mary Meehan and Chancellor Jacqueline Moloney joined a standing-room-only crowd for the grand opening of the UMass Lowell Fabric Discovery Center, new home of the UMass Lowell NERVE center.
Along with The Nerve Center, the Fabric Discovery Center, which is located at 110 Canal Street, also houses the Innovation Hub, and the M2D2 Biotechnology Lab.
The grand opening is the culmination of a process that began in 2017, when the Commonwealth awarded UMass Lowell a grant of $10 million to create the new Fabric Discovery Center. In partnership with AFFOA and NextFlex, the UMass Lowell Fabric Discovery Center represents a national model as the first center to bring together multiple Manufacturing USA Institutes.
At the event, Governor Baker also announced adding additional investments in manufacturing innovation across the Commonwealth through the Massachusetts Manufacturing Innovation initiative (M2I2) Program. Tours of the facility and demonstrations followed the gathering.
The UMass Lowell Fabric Discovery Center features state of the art equipment for research and development, garment design, and fabrication of smart fabrics and medical textiles through its Fashion Makerspace, while the NERVE Center provides test and evaluation capabilities for both robot and human performance.
As on of three NIST ceritifed sites, The NERVE Center is an important asset to the robotics community here in Massachusetts. It’s testing apparatuses, sensors, data collection, personnel, logistics, and data analysis are essential for many local companies. More about the NERVE Center’s services can be found here.
Next time you are in Lowell, be sure to stop by and check out the new space!
