The 2025 Contest is Now Open for Entries!

Submit your best new product ideas in any of seven categories for a chance at $25,000 USD and other great prizes. Here’s how to get started.

Help build a better tomorrow

Since Tech Briefs magazine launched the Create the Future Design contest in 2002 to recognize and reward engineering innovation, over 15,000 design ideas have been submitted by engineers, students, and entrepreneurs in more than 100 countries. Join the innovators who dared to dream big by entering your ideas today.

Read About All the 2024 Winning Inventions

Special Report spotlights the eight amazing winners in 2024 as well as honorable mentions in each category, plus the top ten most popular entries as voted by our community.

Click here to read more

A ‘Create the Future’ Winner Featured on ‘Here’s an Idea’

Spinal cord injury affects 17,000 Americans and 700,000 people worldwide each year. A research team at NeuroPair, Inc. won the Grand Prize in the 2023 Create the Future Design Contest for a revolutionary approach to spinal cord repair. In this Here’s an Idea podcast episode, Dr. Johannes Dapprich, NeuroPair’s CEO and founder, discusses their groundbreaking approach that addresses a critical need in the medical field, offering a fast and minimally invasive solution to a long-standing problem.

Listen now

Thank you from our Sponsors

“At COMSOL, we are very excited to recognize innovators and their important work this year. We are grateful for the opportunity to support the Create the Future Design Contest, which is an excellent platform for designers to showcase their ideas and products in front of a worldwide audience. Best of luck to all participants!”

— Bernt Nilsson, Senior Vice President of Marketing, COMSOL, Inc.

“From our beginnings, Mouser has supported engineers, innovators and students. We are proud of our longstanding support for the Create the Future Design Contest and the many innovations it has inspired.”

— Kevin Hess, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Mouser Electronics

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contest/2019
2019

Mosquito Stopper

Mosquitoes breed in the basins beneath planter pots. In many, there is a protruding lip used to water the plant. Planter pots are generally of a two-part design with the water basin at the bottom and the plant with potting soil on the top.

Shawn Hendricks
Huachuca City, United States

Votes: 0
Views: 1805

Consumer Products
Mar 13, 2019

Autonomous Meal Plan Platform for Appliances (AMPPA™)

I. NEED

My wife is an ecclectic collector of recipes. I always joke with her that she has the

largest collection of Internet- supplied recipes in the world. And, despite that, she never

fails to ask me: “So, what should I make for supper tonight ?”.

A symptom of food preparation today,

Tom Freund
West Hartford, United States

Votes: 0
Views: 1822

Consumer Products
Mar 12, 2019

Solarcycle Renewable Off-Grid Tiny Home

Our off-grid tiny home designs will be on a trailer powered by solar energy and propane. The goal is to use the latest in renewable technology to create a daily living space that is equal or better in providing comfort and the convenience of a larger home.

Isaac Porras
Portland, United States

Votes: 0
Views: 1962

Sustainable Technologies
Mar 12, 2019

APPLY! Condom Applicator

An NIH Tested, US Patented, FDA Approved Hi/Lo Density Polyethylene. flattened polymer ring to which a conventional latex or polyurethane condom is detach-ably-attached, that perfectly centers the condom over an erect penis only to be lowed over said penis so that the condom engages the top 1/3 of the shaft so that the condom is correctly positioned,

Leon Kassman
Mt. Kisco, United States

Votes: 1
Views: 2836

Consumer Products
Mar 11, 2019

Solar Silo

The purpose of the solar-silo is to decrease the geological footprint of solar arrays (using existing technologies) while maintaining maximum array output, eliminating solar tracking and reducing maintenance.

William Bivens
Park Forest, United States

Votes: 3
Views: 4416

Sustainable Technologies
Mar 11, 2019

THORSE

Overcome consumer reluctance to the adoption of self-driving car technology by anthropomorphizing a separate AI-controlled self-driving vehicle which controls the navigation and operation of a connected passenger compartment. Within certain safety parameters, the human occupants would have a residual mechanism for overriding the AI as to the speed and direction of travel.

Garri Hendell
Jupiter, United States

Votes: 0
Views: 2093

Automotive/Transportation
Mar 4, 2019

Dual-Adaptive Camouflage and Dual-Holodeck Properties: The Two Symmetries

Dual-Adaptive Camouflage, or DAC

Adaptive camouflage merely to an environment's background scenery is only half of the property of true invisibility.

It require a dual-adaptive camouflage; one adaptable to the outside of the suit ( usually the case) itself, and it's background scenery taking both as one complete outside environment,

Keith Carlock
Owensboro, United States

Votes: 0
Views: 2117

Electronics/Sensors/IoT
Mar 2, 2019

Dual-Holodeck Properties: Exterior 3-D Scenery and Internal Hologram Casting

External 3-Dimensional Holodeck Scenery

In it's simplest form, invisibility is depicted outside of the Light-Interface System, while an intersection ( holodeck) of the outside light is displayed, painted all along the interior walls in the Light-Interface, itself.

External Holodeck Scenery

The external world is transmitted thru the Light-Interface System,

Keith Carlock
Owensboro, United States

Votes: 0
Views: 2275

Electronics/Sensors/IoT
Mar 2, 2019

Dual-Adaptive Camouflage Invisibility

Adaptable not only to the environment, but to itself as well.

The full diversity of my Light-Interface System concept can be demonstrated with my model of an invisible suit.

My 3-D Pixel Unit concept already exists, in part, as an angle sensitive pixel, but without the counterpart 3-D pixels and the length of connection between them.

Keith Carlock
Owensboro, United States

Votes: 1
Views: 2645

Electronics/Sensors/IoT
Mar 2, 2019