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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.

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Special Report spotlights the eight top entries in 2023 as well as past winners whose ideas are now in the market, making a difference in the world.

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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.

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“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.

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

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Systems for Cargo and People

Votes: 0
Views: 8898
Transportation

Sky Train Corporation created an Innovative Transit and Alternative Energy System that improves and supplements rail. Like upper teeth improve chewing, this improves speed, comfort and handling.

Designed to improve land use, energy consumption and decrease the time between two points.

A safer, less expensive transportation system for people and cargo to build and operate than other systems! A substantial competitive advantage!

The Sustainable STC 150 container system shown is a technologically advanced electric transportation system for moving freight or people; originally funded in part by the Technological Research and Development Authority in Florida. It’s powered by wind, solar, fuel cell or grid energy stored in our patent-pending energy accumulator storage and transfer system (ET). The energy generated by this system may be resold to end users.

Our Energy reproducing systems are designed to facilitate the movement of people or cargo through congested and scenic areas by eliminating the need for ground transportation that ultimately adds pollution and congestion to our roadways and cities and, will do it more quickly and safely at a lower cost per passenger or cargo shipped.

Our energy efficient monorail systems serve as a bridge to cross congested, populated or wetland areas. Elevation mitigates operations during flood conditions, earthquakes, snow, ice and sand storms assuring continuing service especially to isolated areas.

Environmentally this elevated design uses only 4 % of the land beneath the structure for supports and avoids the need for drainage systems, weed spraying of rail ballast while preserving arable land, animal habitat and their migration paths. Other potential benefits include minimal interference to traffic and businesses during construction and operation and faster straight-a-way (100mph) and curving speeds (4 times light rail in the streets), reducing passenger travel times and fleet size due to higher speed requiring less rolling stock and drivers. Automation saves 40% of operating costs and guarantees on-time scheduling allowing longer affordable service hours.

By using our suspended reusable Energy Monorail Transporter systems we will reduce road congestion caused by excessive trucks carrying cargo containers, road wear, and pollution caused by trucks and reduces down time caused by traffic congestion.
Our system will move far more for less.

Sky Train is a transportation provider using patent enhanced transportation rail and aviation technology allowed sixty-three patent claims to improve the performance of the transporter; such as safety by locking within the structure, saving energy and delay by its accumulation of combined features of regeneration, storage and reuse of saved energy and by allowing swing-out comfort, that more evenly balances the force on the wheels, rails and structure, further resulting in reduced maintenance.

The added bonus from savings of using the device for an elevated transporter mounting saves land use, the structures multi-use to mount collection devices of solar and wind, LED street lighting and use it to transmit energy and signals through wires and pipes making it a micro-grid for the future!

Video

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  • ABOUT THE ENTRANT

  • Name:
    Karl Guenther
  • Type of entry:
    team
    Team members:
    Jose Danon PhD
    Hector Guevara PhD
    Doug Tobin PE RA
    Jan Zicha PE
    Alvaro Senabria RA
    Karl Guenther
    Marc Russel
    George Taylor
    Nicholas De Stefano
  • Profession:
    Engineer/Designer
  • Number of times previously entering contest:
    4
  • Karl's favorite design and analysis tools:
    We currently use AutoCAD & BobCAD design software. We have been working with universities, specically with The University of Central Florida's Florida Solar Energy Center and utilizing data logger and other instrumentation for analysis.
  • For managing CAD data Karl's company uses:
    None
  • Karl's hobbies and activities:
    Transit system & energy R&D
  • Karl belongs to these online communities:
    LinkedIn, Drop Box, Skype, FaceBook
  • Karl is inspired by:
    I have a personal joy and commitment to improving options for public transportation, reducing carbon fuel usage and creating efficient electric transit systems. Also, to developing renewable energy technologies to provide advanced storage and transfer capabilities. Technology sharing with universities, like USF, UCF/FSEC, FIT & IIT and partner companies continuously spurs creative new ideas. For more information see Websites and www.SkyTrainCorp.com
  • Software used for this entry:
    Autocad, BobCAD
  • Patent status:
    patented