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

Follow Us for Create the Future News

contest/2012
2012

Compressed Air Engine

Fossil fuels, in any form, are quite effective in terms of power output. However, they are non-renewable and are getting depleted at an alarming pace due to their usage as the primary source of energy. The world will eventually run out of oil and gas in the near future.

Kumail Syed
Karachi, Pakistan

Votes: 0
Views: 4975

Transportation
Mar 2, 2012

Time Stop Machine Automobile

This time stop machine automobile contains the following details. Two electrostatic bearings that are spheres shown in pink. Two pico-lasers, one two stop and one to move, which can be either gamma-ray lasers that utilize dipositronium or a more futuristic pico-laser a constant/variable neutrino laser beam.

Brian Pinzon
El Paso, United States

Votes: 0
Views: 4986

Transportation
Mar 2, 2012

LED/Optic Display Production Machine

The machine I invented uses Ultraviolet light to instantly weld PMMA Plastic Optical Fibers into any flexible material that a hollow point stainless steel needle can penetrate. The CNC machine I commissioned a company to build based on my invention requires an input data file designating the X,

Harry Wainwright
Pittsburgh, United States

Votes: 13
Views: 8040

Machinery & Equipment
Mar 1, 2012

Double Crankshaft Engine for Better Fuel Consumption

A classic engine relies on a crankshaft and a rod to transmit the motion from the piston to main axis, with two main problems with energy loss: the piston motion approximating a sine, which is not optimal for energy transmission to the crankshaft, and the swinging motion of the rod.

Francois Gibon
Vinon Sur Verdon, France (includes Monaco)

Votes: 0
Views: 9357

Transportation
Mar 1, 2012

Fault Tolerant Power & Communications System

My entry to the Comsol/Nordson Contest would have to be my Hercules armored power and communications cabling system. I was approached by a BOMA executive asking for a design for an emergency communications system. I created a univeral system using an armored cable that could be installed in all tall commercial buildings. It won their and FEMAs approval.

Calvin Woosnam
Coquitlam, Canada

Votes: 0
Views: 6399

Safety and Security
Mar 1, 2012

GEDAYC Wind Turbine 300% More Efficient

This is a new concept of wind turbines evolved from conventional models.

GEDAYC is a new concept of wind turbines with blades and kites 300% more efficient than propeller models.

Thanks to its design and the wide range of wind that generates energy from weak to very strong winds.

David Sarria Jiménez
Otura, Spain

Votes: 0
Views: 32580

Sustainable Technologies
Mar 1, 2012

Quantum Chemistry Simulator

The First Dynamic Spherical Harmonic Quantum Chemistry Visual Simulator

Click the above link to watch some sample simulations!

Mark Baker
Buckeye, United States

Votes: 0
Views: 5017

Medical
Mar 1, 2012

2012 Winners Press Release

For Information Contact:
Debbie Rothwell
Director of Marketing
Tech Briefs Media Group
212-490-3999, ext.5520
www.createthefuture2012.com
September 25, 2012

Sensor That Makes Smartphones “Smarter” Wins Global Design Contest

Contest Draws over 950 Innovative Product Ideas from Engineers and Students in 65 Countries

New York, NY – A new invention, Sensordrone, with the potential to dramatically extend the sensing capability of smartphones and tablets has been awarded the grand prize of $20,000 in the 2012 "Create the Future" Design Contest.

The Sensordrone Tricorder Platform for Consumers and Mobile Device Developers is a key fob-sized device that includes multiple environmental sensors that enable consumers to run a variety of Apps — from carbon monoxide monitoring to breath alcohol testing. For mobile device developers, it offers an open platform to create new low-cost sensor applications, both for entertainment and more serious applications such as medical sensors.

Sensordrone was among the more than 950 new product ideas submitted in the tenth annual design contest, which was established in 2002 to recognize and reward engineering innovations that benefit humanity, the environment, and the economy. This year’s contest was co-sponsored by Nordson EFD (www.nordsonefd.com), COMSOL (www.comsol.com), and Tech Briefs Media Group (www.techbriefsmedia.com).

Mark Wagner, president and founder of Sensorcon (Buffalo, NY), is part of the design team and sees the Sensordrone product as a first step in making sensors, meters, and instruments “Apps” instead of single purpose, bulky, expensive equipment.

After hearing the news that he was the grand prize winner of the Create the Future Design Contest, Mr. Wagner replied, “Winning the Create the Future Design Contest was far beyond my expectations and I am really honored by receiving this award. As the product is now moving from prototype to production, this will add an additional level of credibility.”

In addition to the grand prize of $20,000, first-place winners (of Hewlett-Packard workstations) were named in seven categories:

Consumer Products
LumEN: Luminescent Solar Concentrators for Sustainable On-Demand Electricity Production
Gianmarco Griffini
A portable device able to harvest solar energy and deliver electrical energy on-demand indoors or outdoors.

Electronics
Cloud and Smartphone Accelerator
James Awrach
A tool that enables faster local and globally distributed supercomputing at lower power and cost.

Machinery & Equipment
Thermal Stir Welding Process
Jeff Ding
A new solid-state welding process invented at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center that greatly improves weld quality and strength.

Medical – sponsored by Value Plastics, Inc. (a Nordson Company)
Prosthetic Leg Connector
Dave King
A device to aid those who wear prosthetic limbs that allows for much easier application and better comfort.

Safety & Security
LIFE PACK – Hypothermia Prevention Floatation Device
Dwight & Jane Cushman
A heat-generating floatation device resembling a backpack that offers protection in dangerously cold water.

Sustainable Technologies
Aquaback Water Purification System
E. Andrew Condon
A highly efficient, low cost, low maintenance, compact, modular vapor compression distiller to be used in a wide variety of water processing systems to clean incoming water or reclaim waste water.

Transportation
Re-Thinking Automotive TPMS
Ivan Batinic
A new approach to implementing vehicular Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS) which is more economical and ecological than existing systems.

Finalists were selected by senior editors at Tech Briefs Media Group and judged by an independent panel of design engineers. Visitors to the contest Web site could vote on entries, with the 10 most popular designs awarded a Space Mouse PRO 3D mouse from 3Dconnexion. Popular design winners hailed from Canada, India, and Egypt, in addition to the U.S. For more information, visit www.createthefuture2012.com.

About COMSOL
COMSOL, Inc. (Burlington, MA) provides software solutions for multiphysics modeling and simulation. Its flagship product, COMSOL Multiphysics, lets engineers and scientists build simulations to verify and optimize their designs. Its unparalleled ability to include all relevant physical effects that exist in the real world opens up a wide array of modeling possibilities. COMSOL's customers apply this technology to make cars and aircraft safer and more energy efficient, enhance the reception of our cell phones, search for new energy sources, explore the universe, develop medical equipment enabling more accurate diagnoses, and educate the next generation of scientists.
www.comsol.com

About Nordson EFD
Nordson EFD designs and manufactures precision fluid dispensing systems for benchtop assembly processes and automated assembly lines. By enabling manufacturers to apply the same amount of adhesive, lubricant or other assembly fluid to every part, every time, EFD dispensing systems are helping companies in a wide variety of industries increase throughput, improve quality and lower their production costs. Other fluid management capabilities include high-quality syringe barrels and cartridges for packaging one- and two-component materials, and a wide variety of fittings, couplers and connectors for controlling fluid flow in medical, biopharmaceutical and industrial environments. The company is also a leading formulator of high-quality solder pastes for printing and dispensing applications in the electronics industry.
www.nordsonefd.com

About Tech Briefs Media Group
Tech Briefs Media Group is publisher of NASA Tech Briefs, the largest-circulation design-engineering magazine worldwide; Defense Tech Briefs, the largest-circulation engineering magazine for the mil/aero market; and Medical Design Briefs; the only medical publication targeted 100% to OEM product designers. Combined, these products reach over 600,000 engineers and managers worldwide. Additional publications include Photonics Tech Briefs, Imaging Technology, Motion Control and Automation Technology, RF & Microwave Technology, Embedded Technology, and Lighting Technology. The Tech Briefs Media Group product line has grown to include print/digital advertising, email/web products, virtual events, custom media, and content related advertising.
www.techbriefsmedia.com

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