The Cade Museum for Creativity + Invention continues moving toward its goal of opening its 21,000-square-foot building in two years.
On July 1, a committee of the Gainesville Community Redevelopment Agency reviewed the museum’s proposal to lease two acres of Depot Park, a step toward formal city approval of the lease.
On Monday (July 8), Gov. Rick Scott made a presentation in Tallahassee honoring Dr. Robert Cade as a Great Floridian—drawing attention his achievements, including inventing Gatorade.
Meanwhile, Baltimore-based architectural firm GWWO is progressing on the building’s design.
The museum has raised $2 million of its $9 million goal, and the staff and board are seeking major gifts from businesses and organizations across the United States, including the Gatorade company, said Board President and CEO Phoebe Cade Miles, one of Cade’s daughters.
“Phoebe is dedicated to fulfilling her promise to her dad to build a museum that will teach science through exposing students to invention,” said Board Vice Chair Richard Miles, who is Phoebe’s husband.
The museum is offering classes featuring living inventors. Some of the classes are at the museum’s temporary home on South Main Street, which houses part of Dr. Cade’s original laboratory.
Other classes are in inventors’ laboratories. For example, UF anesthesiologist Dr. Nik Gravenstein invited students to his lab at the UF Health Science Center.
He guided students in doing endotracheal intubations on the patient simulator that his father, also a UF anesthesiologist, invented. He then took the students to Florida Field, where they tested air-cooled shoulder pads that he invented.
The museum also has been promoting invention through the annual $50,000 Cade Museum Prize for the past four years.
This year’s winner, NanoPhotonica, invented a revolutionary flat panel display for smartphones, tablets and computers.
The Miles have returned to Gainesville, where they grew up, after living around the globe due to Richard’s career in the Army and the foreign service.
While making a difference internationally was satisfying, the couple says that it’s equally important to make a difference in the world of invention.
“Teaching science through inventions is more interesting to kids because they see the amazing outcome of an idea first, and then they become excited about learning the science and chain of events behind it,” Richard said.
“We can talk about the inventors themselves–their personal histories and experiences–which always brings an invention to life.”
Baltimore-based architectural firm GWWO is designing the Cade Museum (See Below)
