Congratulations to Our 2025 Grand Prize and First Place Winners!

Imersiv, a breakthrough technology that improves audio performance by 100X compared to today’s very best audio equipment for applications ranging from sound engineering to space missions to medical imaging, was named the $25,000 grand prize winner at a live finalist round held November 7 in New York. Click here for the full list of winners. Also see the Top 100 highest scoring entries. Special thanks to our esteemed panel of judges.

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 16,000 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 in our 2026 contest opening March 1.

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
Contest

Object Tracking Device is otherwise known as an object selecting device. This can be done by using our eye. At the front of the eye, keep three layers of transparent sheets. The inner most layer has an ordinary transparent sheet. The middle has a transparent display and finally the outer most layer has an ordinary transparent sheet.

Votes: 22
Views: 5092
Machinery & Equipment

If I can to tune a broadcasting station, then I also can tune the sun's light because the light is an electromagnetic wave.

The tuning circuit (coil+capacitor) captures the electromagnetic signal from the light and generate

voltage.

In my country the resources do not exist for this project. Only the United States can do this project,

Votes: 1
Views: 4703
Sustainable Technologies

While there have been many technological advancements in vehicle braking systems over the years (4-Wheel Disc, Anti-Lock, Electronic Stability Control, etc.), widespread advancements in friction materials and their manufacturing processes are few. The problematic nature of today’s resin bonded metallic (“RBM”) materials (including environmental, wear and performance issues, as well as declining quality from offshore production),

Votes: 1
Views: 4400
Transportation & Automotive

GRAND PRIZE WINNER

Sensordrone: a Practical, Tricorder Like Platform for Consumers and Mobile Device Developers
Mark Wagner, Sensorcon, Buffalo, New York
Sensordrone is a multi-purpose, configurable sensor that dramatically extends the sensing capability of smartphones & tablets. It is a key Fob sized platform for both consumers and developers.

CONSUMER PRODUCTS CATEGORY

LumEN: Luminescent Solar Concentrators for Sustainable On-Demand Electricity Production
Gianmarco Griffini, Massimo Micocci, and Francesca Ostuzzi, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
Lum-EN is the first portable device able to harvest solar energy and deliver electrical energy on-demand employing organic luminescent solar concentrators (OLSCs).

MEDICAL CATEGORY

Prosthetic Leg Connector
Dave King, Kelowna, BC, Canada
This is a device to aid those who wear prosthetic limbs. The current state of the art is a multilayer system that consists of a cotton sock and a silicone rubber sock that fits over the limb. The prosthesis can attach to the silicone sock by means of a rod and ratchet device.

ELECTRONICS CATEGORY

Cloud and Smartphone Accelerator
James Awrach, Beverly, Massachusetts
Grid-X is a SeaFire innovation that addresses BWDP, and enables faster local and globally distributed supercomputing at lower power and cost.

MACHINERY/EQUIPMENT CATEGORY

Thermal Stir Weld Process
Jeff Ding, NASA, Athens, Alabama
The thermal stir welding process (U.S. Patents 7,980,449 & 8,127,977) is a new solid-state (meaning the weld metal does not melt during welding) welding process invented at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.

SAFETY & SECURITY CATEGORY

LIFE PACK – Hypothermia Prevention Floatation Device
Dwight and Jane Cushman, Portland, Oregon
The LIFE PACK is the first of its kind dual bag floatation device incorporating an inner thermal lined compartment, which holds a heat generating super-corrosion technology sleeve.

SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGY CATEGORY

Aquaback Water Purification System
E. Andrew Condon, William Zebuhr, Scott Newquist, David Dussault, Steven Sahagian, Nicholas Wong, Michael Easton, William Burie, Charles Blanchard, and Nicole Sandoval, Aquaback Technologies, Tewksbury, Massachusetts
Aquaback is developing a highly efficient, low cost, low maintenance, compact, modular vapor compression distiller to be the water processing module in a wide variety of water processing systems to clean incoming water or reclaim waste water.

TRANSPORTATION CATEGORY

Re-Thinking Automotive TPMS
Ivan Batinic, San Martin, California
This is a new approach to implementing vehicular Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS) which is more economical and ecological than existing systems mass-deployed in the market to date, with significant advantages, the foremost being the passive non-electronic sending unit (inside the tire) thereby eliminating RF electronics, thermal compensation issues, raising of the RF noise-floor and wasteful consumption of limited Lithium resources for batteries.

Congratulations to all the 2012 Contest Participants!

Grand Prize

Sensordrone: a Practical, Tricorder Like Platform for Consumers and Mobile Device Developers
Mark Wagner, Sensorcon, Buffalo, New York

Category Winners

Consumer Products

LumEN: Luminescent Solar Concentrators for Sustainable On-Demand Electricity Production
Gianmarco Griffini, Massimo Micocci, and Francesca Ostuzzi, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

Medical

Prosthetic Leg Connector
Dave King, Kelowna, BC, Canada

Electronics

Cloud and Smartphone Accelerator
James Awrach, Beverly, Massachusetts

Machinery & Equipment

Thermal Stir Weld Process
Jeff Ding, NASA, Athens, Alabama

Safety & Security

LIFE PACK – Hypothermia Prevention Floatation Device
Dwight and Jane Cushman, Portland, Oregon

Sustainable Technologies

Aquaback Water Purification System
E. Andrew Condon, William Zebuhr, Scott Newquist, David Dussault, Steven Sahagian, Nicholas Wong, Michael Easton, William Burie, Charles Blanchard, and Nicole Sandoval, Aquaback Technologies, Tewksbury, Massachusetts

Transportation

Re-Thinking Automotive TPMS
Ivan Batinic, San Martin, California


Top Ten Most Popular Entries

Evacuated Tube Transport Technologies (ET3)™
Daryl Oster, ET3 Global Alliance, Longmont, Colorado

Benchtop Pomegranate Deseeder
Uddhab Bharali, North Lakhimpur, Asssam India

Making Fuel from Vehicular Emissions
Jaideep Singh, Delhi, India

Multi-Function Photocatalytic Solar Desalination
Amin Taheri Najafabadi, Vancouver, BC, Canada< /p>

Adaptive Smart Home Technology
Amit Badlani, Bangalore, Karnataka India

Virtual Walking Stick for the Visually Impaired
Jonathan and Maxwell Tolstedt, Fargo, North Dakota

Inoculation Monitoring Device
Avantika, Patna, Bihar India

Solar Boiler Electrical Generator and Heat Machine
Matthew Davis, Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Design and Development of a Multi Stage Contra Rotating Mini Axial Compressor
Amit Mangtani, Apoorv Maheshwari, Achyut Panchal, Pranav Raheja, Raj Patel, Mitanshu Sharma, and Nishant Khanduja, IIT Bombay, Mumbai, Maharashtra India

Flying Safer
Alaa Thabet, Cairo, Egypt





View the 100 highest-scoring entries


Thank you to our panel of judges.

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